Cough, Cough. Obesity is Contagious

Brent Jessop - Knowledge Driven Revolution.com
August 20, 2007

No doubt, we are a grossly overfed and undernourished society. There is a constant reminder of this through all forms of media, all carrying their own strange distortions promoting diets or government regulations to solve the ‘obesity epidemic’.

The ‘obesity epidemic’ is now being promoted by experts as an even bigger danger then smoking ever was.

Clinics and hospitals across Canada need a major infusion of money to prepare for the coming impact of an obesity epidemic that could one day outweigh the effects of smoking on the health-care system, experts warned Thursday. – Canadian Press

Is this really an appropriate comparison?

Fear the Smoking Man

An interesting historical note about the anti-smoking movement. The Nazis used fake science attributing severe health effects to smoking and 'passive' or second-hand smoking to justify intrusions into the personal habits of the German people.

“Brother national socialist, do you know that our Führer is against smoking and think that every German is responsible to the whole people for all his deeds and emissions, and does not have the right to damage his body with drugs?”

Did the Nazis care about the health of the general public or did they have other motives? For some more information on the Nazi anti-smoking activities please read this article.

It is important to draw the parallel to how governments of today are using the fear of smoking to further regulate many, formerly private, aspects of individuals' lives.

Does your government care about you more than the Nazis, or do they have other motives?

Fear the Fat Man

My issue here is not with the health effects of smoking or obesity. People can make their own decisions about their own lifestyles, be it emissions or food intake. My concern is how governments and their do-good control freak helpers attempt to regulate everyone’s life. The result being a government with increased power and the precedent to regulate minute personal behaviour. Smoking (or obesity) is healthier than Fascism.

One of the favourite methods of linking smoking to the detriment of our money-obsessed society was through health-care costs. The exact same thing is now being done for obesity.

Surgeries are expensive, but the country's health facilities also need a major overhaul to widen doorways, corridors and washrooms to accommodate specially designed stretchers, wheelchairs and other equipment, he said.

"It starts from seating and simple things like having a blood-pressure cuff of the right dimension, a scale that will weigh over 500 pounds, and it comes down to architectural structure of the actual buildings."

Then there's also the cost of special training and expert staff so patients are treated with the dignity they deserve, he added.

"This is a very sensitive population, they've been marginalized forever and you have to provide the kind of medical and psychological care in an environment that really meets their needs," Sharma said.

Other than medical costs, it is a little harder to link an individual’s obesity to the general health of the public. There is no “passive” or “second-hand obesity”. Or is there?

A landmark study has found that whether those closest to you are overweight or slender can significantly influence your own body shape and that of others in your social group - and that could have huge implications for public health measures to battle the growing obesity epidemic.

"Really what's unique or special about our study is to my knowledge this is the first study that's been able to look at an entire social network at once and tease out not just how there's person-to-person transmission, but rather how there's person-to-person-to-person transmission," said co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University.

Person-to-person transmission in the obesity epidemic? Science has spoken. Fear the fat man.

Smith! 6079 Smith W! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me."

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