Obesity, Responsibility, and Freedom

Our favorite doctor examines the massively pressing problem of obesity, and the British government’s recent proposal to address this burgeoning issue, in his The Epoch Times column.

On the other hand, most people think, with varying degrees of reticence to express their thoughts in public, that obesity is the consequence of weakness of will. Greed is not illness but a sin, or at least a moral failure. We are fat because we give into temptation, that which Oscar Wilde said was the only thing that he could not resist.

One thought on “Obesity, Responsibility, and Freedom

  1. Mariana Bell

    I don’t think it is legitimate to interfere with other people’s choice of food. The current obesity among the trashy classes is a feeble attempt at natural selection (unlike social policy which aims at the opposite – the survival of the unfittest). In any case, obesity will not increase the cost to the nhs, society, etc as these people should die young and not draw their pensions or continue to draw their smorgasbord of benefits. If anything, healthy, slim people would represent a higher cost to “society”, they will draw pensions for longer than they worked, they will cost a fortune in personal care beyond 90 and they will always be in and out of hospitals with silly little ailments for decades. Let them eat cake.

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