Slim down government for a healthier America

As America's self-appointed Obesity Czar, first lady Michelle Obama recently urged members of the National Restaurant Association to go light on butter and cream, serve smaller portions, and offer more "healthy" menu options to diners.

To the extent consumers are demanding more nutritional fare, her suggestions are harmless. The problem is, Mrs. Obama isn't just dishing advice. To advance her signature cause of reducing child obesity, she's firmly focused on expanding government's already gargantuan girth.

Her immediate goal is passage of a super-size Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, which would put Washington bureaucrats in charge of school cafeterias across the country, mandate nutrition curriculum and underwrite "community gardening projects." Her husband's administration, meanwhile, is going after the food industry for marketing methods that supposedly force parents to heed the demands of their offspring for great quantities of sweetened cereals and sodium-laden snacks. The Federal Trade Commission, in fact, initiated subpoenas last month against 48 food companies compelling responses to more than 100 pages of questions about their advertising to children and teens.

All of which brings to mind H.L. Mencken's observation, "The urge to save humanity is almost always the false face of the urge to rule humanity." While no one can seriously argue that obesity doesn't pose a modicum of risk, a great many unfounded claims have wildly exaggerated the health hazards. For example, Mrs. Obama contends that our collective lifespan is spiraling downward because of Big Macs and Whoppers when, in fact, our average life expectancy (from birth) has been increasing dramatically for more than a century, from 46.3 years for men and 48.3 years for women in 1900 to 75.1 for men and 80.2 for women in 2006. Also noteworthy is the remarkable decline in years lost to obesity-related ailments such as heart disease — down 31 percent — and cancer — down 29 percent.

For all the talk of an obesity "epidemic," obesity rates in the United States no longer are rising, but have remained constant during the last five years for men, and for nearly 10 years for women and children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Perhaps the most erroneous notion among adipose alarmists is that regulation will remedy the problem. In reality, government has been a major cause of the country's bigger caloric footprint. Researchers have documented higher rates of obesity among recipients of food stamps, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. And the longer recipients remained in the program, the heavier they became. Even Mrs. Obama blames public schools for packing on the pounds — which makes her campaign for yet more government control over cafeteria menus rather imprudent.