Nanny State How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children Hardback - 2007

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE
TWINKIE FASCISTS


The proverb warns that “you should not bite the hand that feeds you.” But maybe you should. If it prevents you from feeding yourself. —Thomas Szasz

Never trust a dog to watch your food. —Unknown


GUARDIANS OF YOUR GULLET

The fashionable eastside neighborhood of Oakhurst in Decatur, Georgia, is the last place you would imagine that an establishment like Mulligan’s could survive. The area, once teeming with drug dealers and home to some of the highest crime rates in the area, has undergone an astonishing gentrification the past few years. Today, Oakhurst is home to countless upwardly mobile couples inhabiting refurbished Craftsman bungalows with luxurious baby joggers sitting unattended on front lawns.

Mulligan’s, located at the end of a nondescript parking lot, is a restaurant, sports bar—and counterrevolutionary enterprise. Here, I imagine, patrons would be capable of coalescing into an armed insurgency should some squeamish busybody suggest mandating smaller food portions. Mulligan’s is perhaps best known for its glorious Luther Burger—purportedly named after a favorite midnight nibble of the late R&B crooner Luther Vandross. The Luther Burger is your standard bacon cheeseburger with a Krispy Kreme doughnut substituting for the traditional bun.

What’s not to like?

But there’s more. A lot more. Mulligan’s ratchets up the fun quotient by serving a nutritionist's nightmare known as the Hamdog. This treat begins as a hot dog, sure, but then that sucker is wrapped in a beef patty, which is then, for good measure, deep fried and covered with cheese, chili, onions, a fried egg, and a heaping portion of fries. If you want a side of deep–fried Twinkies and a large soda, go for it.

Mulligan’s fame—or perhaps you could call it infamy—has spread far beyond the confines of this neighborhood. During a Tonight Show monologue, Jay Leno described the particulars of the notorious Luther Burger, eliciting big laughs. The Krispy Kreme corporation has joined the fun, teaming up with an Illinois minor league team called the Gateway Grizzlies to create “Baseball’s Best Burger,” a thousand–calorie cheeseburger sandwiched between a sliced glazed doughnut.

* * *

Why am I hanging out here? To make a point. A free citizen exercising my right to eat the most sinfully unwholesome foods I could find in this great nation. Because, you know, not everyone finds the Hamdog as entertaining or as tempting as I do. Which is their prerogative, of course. But there are growing numbers of officious activists who would like to deny me the self-determination and pleasure of eating a Hamdog or Luther Burger.

This group of finger-wagging activists advocate enhanced government control over choice. Many folks call this particular breed of militant nanny the food police. Legendary radio personality Paul Harvey once referred to them as “the guardians of your gullet.” I like to call them Twinkie Fascists—among other less polite monikers. And though this movement is still in its infancy, the Twinkie Fascists are gaining momentum and influence at a startling pace.

As with all realms of nannyism, this attack on freedom and choice is fueled by good intentions. Nannies will do whatever they can to stop us from eating via city, state, or federal regulations. They’ll use litigation to limit our choices and engage in government–sponsored scaremongering, penalizing food manufacturers, restaurants, or consumers with specialized taxes.

With that in mind, I decide to go all out. I order a Hamdog. It’s perfect. Huge. Greasy. Impudently harmful to my health. Nicholas Lang, a professor of surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, once told the Associated Press if “you choke that [Hamdog] down, you might as well find a heart surgeon because you are going to need one.” But what does he know? Nannies are always so melodramatic. And sure enough, after that first bite my heart doesn’t explode.

Yet the truth is that despite the scrumptiousness of the Hamdog, I could only finish half. As a human being, it seems that I possess a certain level of self-control. I gather that if I, a dreadfully weak and easily seduced man, can control myself, most Americans can do even better. Most can still find pleasure in eating and reward in self-control. Two concepts that nannies, it seems, can't wrap their minds around.


PLUMP FICTION

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offices are, as luck would have it, only a short drive from Mulligan’s. The offices are more like a compound. This place is busy. When the CDC began as a single-floor operation more than forty years ago, it was responsible for investigating malaria and related maladies, but these days the organization deals with virtually all facets of public health, from preventing and controlling infectious and chronic diseases, to workplace hazards, to disabilities and other environmental health threats.

The CDC has a new agenda: the peculiar job not only of discouraging folks from engaging in avoidable habits but of becoming part of a propaganda war that shocks Americans. That’s what happened when the CDC held a well–publicized news conference in March of 2004 to announce a new troubling study that alleged overeating was responsible for an extraordinary death toll: 400,000 Americans in 2000—a 33 percent jump from 1990. According to the report obesity was well on its way to surpassing smoking as the nation's top preventable cause of death. “Our worst fears were confirmed,” claimed Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC’s director and an author of the study.

The significance of the study was bolstered by the presence of then-secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. “Americans need to understand,” he grimly noted, “that overweight [sic] and obesity are literally killing us.” As a matter of fact, the federal government promised to lend a helping hand to stop the madness to the tune of $400 million in research.

Imagine what sort of good that $400 million might have done in research on, say, cancer. Instead, the CDC had taken the first step toward creating an environment where intrusive public policy thrives. They vowed to revise food labels and to launch a public-awareness and education campaign to stop the mess—but that was only the beginning. Food was “literally” killing us by the hundreds of thousands each year, which called for more action.

To help perpetuate an atmosphere of panic, doom-and-gloom headlines blared across newspapers nationwide. (Leave it to the histrionic New York tabloids to excel at jolting the public: “Digging Graves with Our Teeth: Obesity Rivals Smoking as Killer” read the New York Daily News, and “Dying to Eat—Weight Woe Nears Cigs as Top Killer” countered the New York Post.) Journalists detailed the catastrophe french fry by french fry. The report sparked hundreds of opinion pieces that examined various ways the government—federal, state, and city—could step in and rescue us from this eruption of fat.

The problem was that the report wasn’t exactly true. And although Americans hear distraught commentary from pundits, nutritionists, and nannies, there were many scientists and statisticians who were more skeptical about the CDC’s extraordinary claims. Soon enough, these intellectually honest men and women began jabbing holes in the report.

The first salvo came in May 2004, in the pages of Science magazine. The investigative piece claimed that some researchers, including a few at the CDC itself, dismissed the report’s prediction, maintaining that the underlying data of the report were quite unconvincing. One detractor within the CDC characterized the core data in the report as “loosey-goosey.” Critics largely objected to the addition to the obesity category of deaths attributed to poor nutrition. It was a stat that, considering the vagaries of life, was impossible to quantify.

Even within the walls of the CDC, a source told Science, internal discussions could get contentious. Several epidemiologists at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health also had concerns about the numbers, yet before the publication of the report, some within the agency felt that the conclusions weren't debatable because of organizational pressure. One apprehensive CDC staff member went as far as to allege that he wouldn't speak out truthfully for fear of losing his job—not exactly the dynamic and transparent environment that scientific discovery thrives in. But then again, sometimes getting the right answer trumps discerning the prickly truth.

The second blow came, and it was even more damning. The Wall Street Journal published a front–page story in November of 2004, running a litany of errors that swamped the dramatic death number. The paper noted that the study had “inflated the impact of obesity on the annual death toll by tens of thousands due to statistical errors.” In a follow-up story, the Journal reported that due to additional troubles with methodology the actual number of obesity–related deaths might be less than half of the 400,000 originally estimated in the CDC study.

But that didn't stop many nannies from brandishing the dubious numbers until the CDC was finally forced to disclose their gross miscalculation. With a different team of CDC scientists and more recent data, they revised their numbers to 112,000 deaths a year. In April 2005, The Journal of the American Medical Association put the CDC out of its misery, publishing its own study on the impact of obesity, which revealed a radically revised estimation. It concluded that obesity actually was responsible for around 25,000 American deaths each year. In other words, 375,000 fewer deaths than the CDC had originally maintained.

Oops.

Most news outlets had little to say on the revised numbers. The obesity “epidemic” was a great story, a jumping–off point to a nation under siege from corporate burger peddlers. The CDC, hoping to distract from their gross over–calculation, dispatched a disease detective to states like West Virginia to get the lowdown on the epidemic.

Getting people worried was precisely the point. That’s step one. The next step was to figure out how to save people from themselves. Could they close down all the fast–food restaurants? Tax them heavily enough to convince people not to enter the golden archways? Could they coerce residents into morning calisthenics? Impose dietary restrictions or portion restriction at restaurants? Ban cookies? Ban commercials? Why not?


OUR PANIC DU JOUR

Chandler Goff once claimed that there was no practical way he could calculate the fat or caloric content of Mulligan's delectable dishes.

I believe him. And I’m thankful.

As a public service, however, Goff affixes a note at the bottom of each menu that advises diners to “have the sense to realize that although delicious, we do not recommend eating fried foods every day.” Goff also urges his patrons to exercise regularly and get an annual physical. “These [dishes] are great pleasures,” according to Goff. “You don't want to eat this every day.” Goff’s message is considerate, but unnecessary. One imagines the majority of Mulligan's customers—as well as the greater part of the nation—do not plan on persisting on a diet of Hamdogs and deep–fried Twinkies.

Unlike other spheres of nannyism—alcohol and tobacco, for instance—every one of us partakes of food. Even the healthiest among us eats insalubrious treats on occasion. Likewise, most of us have turned down that second Boston cream doughnut or pushed aside those last few curly fries. We realize the consequences. And once we recognize that it’s possible to turn away food, hit the treadmill, or eat salad instead of steak, we appreciate that it’s within the capacity of the other humans to follow suit.

Americans are paying more attention to nutrition. According to a 2006 Associated Press poll, nearly 80 percent of Americans claim they inspect labels on food they buy at grocery stores. The study goes on to state that of Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty–nine, an age group that has less caloric worries, 39 percent check out the calories on the product first. That doesn’t mean that these folks don’t buy the product if they discover that it’s unhealthy. It only means that they’re not being fooled.

Yet even with the heightened understanding of nutrition, nannies will attempt to dismiss personal responsibility. Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), for instance, argues that Americans have “got to move beyond personal responsibility.” The CSPI also asserts that obesity “is not merely a matter of individual responsibility. Such suggestions are naive and simplistic.”

Let’s pause momentarily to be suitably disgusted by this comment. The idea that we should “get past” personal responsibility is as ludicrous as it is un–American. It cuts to the heart of what freedom is about: choices. Right and wrong.

Marion Nestle is another veteran of the food-police movement that has claimed that expecting individuals to practice free will was akin to “blaming the victim.” Nestle, a New York University nutritionist and author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, has frequently equated what food manufacturers do to the actions of Big (bad) Tobacco, insinuating that both industries are pushers of hazardous addictions on children. To many nannies, a nicotine addiction (which leads to cancer) and a sugar “addiction” (which most often leads to scrumptious treats) are morally analogous. And if it were true, Haagen–Dazs and Breyers would be as complicit in harming Americans as R. J. Reynolds.

That’s what Nestle would have you believe. And she’s not above throwing around controversial CDC numbers to make her point: “The combination of poor diet, sedentary lifestyle and excessive alcohol consumption contributes to about 400,000 of the two million or so annual deaths in the U.S., about the same number and proportion affected by cigarette smoking.” Thus Nestle wonders why sellers “of food products do not attract the same kind of attention as purveyors of drugs or tobacco. They should.”

Notwithstanding the unfiltered noise coming from these corners, free will is still a popular idea with the average American. In a recent poll conducted by Dutko Worldwide, callers asked “who bears the greatest responsibility for obesity in the United States—individuals, parents, doctors, schools, restaurants, food companies or nutrition educators.” An unambiguous majority of repondents (63 percent) said that “individuals themselves” bear the greatest responsibility for what they put in their mouths. This was followed by parents (22 percent). A minute number blamed corporate food providers (4 percent) or restaurants (2 percent) or even schools (1 percent). These numbers tell us that food nannies have a long road ahead in convincing the typical American that free will is a simplistic idea that needs to be overcome.


* * *

The fact that many Americans eat their food outside of the home is another point of consternation for nannies. In June 2006, a 136–page report prepared by the Keystone Center, an education and public group based in Keystone, Colorado, found that Americans consume one–third of their daily calories outside their homes. The accelerating pace of everyday life, our growing prosperity, and ever-improving choices means that Americans are more inclined to eat out.

The report, funded by the Food and Drug Administration, was in part a means to search for the most prudent way to “help” consumers manage their intake at the nearly 900,000 restaurants and food establishments in the United States. “We must take a serious look at the impact these foods are having on our waistlines,” explained Penelope Slade Royall, assistant secretary for disease prevention and health promotion at the Department of Health and Human Services. The report encourages restaurants to shift the emphasis of their marketing to “lower-calorie choices” and to include more such options on menus. In addition, restaurants were encouraged to cut down on portion sizes.

Media reviews

Advance Praise for Nanny State

“The scariest thing about the creeping authoritarianism of What’s Good For You is how few people notice it anymore. David Harsanyi notices it, thank God, and has written a terrific reminder of why, if they can force you to wear your seatbelt, they can force you to do just about anything. Buy this book. You'll laugh, you’ll cry, you may wind up voting Libertarian.”
—Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker and author of Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News


“The average American has little idea just how many liberties have been lost through the growth of the Leviathan. Increasingly there's a regulation, the need to get permission, and the outright banning of ordinary activities that have always been seen as personal and private. David Harsanyi gives us a detailed script of this ugly process. He is more than generous by titling this egregious attack on our liberties as the ‘Nanny State.’”
—Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and author of More Liberty Means Less Government


“This is a dangerous book—mostly because if it falls into the hands of legislators or city councils, they’ll find new ideas for things to ban or mandate. But for sensible people, it’s a wake-up call about the efforts of busybodies on both left and right to nitpick every aspect of our lives, from what we eat and drink to what we watch on television to what games our children can play.”
—David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer