RSS 2.0 FeedMississippi: No Food For Fat People
by Doug MataconisA legislator in Mississippi has proposed legislation that would forbid restaurant from serving people defined as “obsese:”
It has actually happened. Lawmakers have proposed legislation that forbids restaurants and food establishments from serving food to anyone who is obese (as defined by the State). Under this bill, food establishments are to be monitored for compliance under the State Department of Health and violators will have their business permits revoked.
House Bill 282 was introduced in the 2008 Mississippi legislative session on Friday by Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., a retired pharmaceutical salesman with DuPont-Merk. Its co-authors are Bobby Shows, a businessman, and John Read, a pharmacist.
The full text of the bill is available here, but here’s a summary:
An act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the state department of health; to direct the department to prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese and to provide those materials to the food establishments; to direct the department to monitor the food establishments for compliance with the provisions of this act; and for related purposes. Be it enacted by the legislature of the state of Mississippi:
Under the proposed law, any food establishment found to have violated this law would be at risk of ha ving their Health Department license taken away. But how, exactly, would this bill be enforced ? Would Mississippians have to take a Body Mass Index text before walking being seated at Ruby Tuesday ? Would they have to carry around a doctor’s note certifying that they aren’t obese ? Would Mississippi (which would do better to concentrate on improving it’s school system) hire bands of fitness trainers to travel the state looking for restaurants making the mistake of serving someone who’s overweight ?
The pure absurdity of this law is pretty galling, but even more galling is the attitude of the guy who proposed it:
I called lead author, Rep. Mayhall, and asked if this was serious legislation or tongue-in-cheek to make a point. He kindly took a moment to answer my question while the legislature was in session. He said that while, regrettably, he doesn’t believe his bill will pass, this is serious. He wrote it, he said, because of the “urgency of the obesity crisis and need for government action.” He hopes it will “call attention to the serious problem of obesity and what it is costing the Medicare system.”
And just wait till Hillary-care comes.
H/T: QandO
It’s about time that the fat non-smokers get their due. Really, did they think that once the blue smog cleared, no one would notice that they shouldn’t be in a bar or restaurant in the first place??
This is were we are heading. One just needs to look at the UK’s NHS ideas.
The irony of it all… First a vote to remove someone else’s rights and in the end it affects you too! Wake up people!!
Comment by Amyz — February 2, 2008 @ 7:12 amTwo thoughts.
1) Wasn’t obesity one of the recent additions or attempted additions to the ADA’s target group, meaning you couldn’t discriminate against fat people?
2) Just because someone eats fruits and vegetables doesn’t mean they will eat healthier; it just means it will be more expensive. As a fat man, I can eat a large pizza or 10 mini-burgers or 2 feet of Subway subs. Does anyone think I couldn’t eat 15 oranges if I happened to care for the hassle of eating them?
By the way, I am trying to remember what movie it was, but there was a scene at the end where an old lady is throwing chairs out the window when she is told to leave a buffet place after eating for 3 hours. I can picture it now. A fat guy told he can’t eat at a restaurant goes postal and destroys the place. Guess Denny’s will need to hire bouncers now.
Comment by trumpetbob15 — February 2, 2008 @ 10:30 amThis is hilarious. One of the regional papers here in Michiana (Michigan and Indiana area) had a couple letters to the editor in which area residents decried the use of state force to ban smokers from restaurants. One of the readers compared, maybe fecetiously, the smoking ban to an obesity ban of just this sort. Here’s the text of the two letters:
“The whole smoking issue about privately-owned business is not about smoking as much as it is about government control. Publicly-owned facilities should be non-smoking. But privately-owned businesses should be able to make their own decisions. The public does not have to patronize or work at private businesses except by choice. And by allowing this, the government will be able to tell every business owner what he or she can or cannot do. Incredible!
Since obesity is the No. 1 health issue in America, perhaps the government can declare that obese people may not patronize restaurants. I can’t believe that every bar and restaurant owner in America hasn’t banded together to fight the legality of this kind of control.
Sharon Coppens
Mishawaka”
“There was a classic clash of diametrically opposing views regarding government’s role in the private lives of Americans on the Jan. 11 editorial page of The Tribune. Sharon Coppens of Mishawaka wrote a letter to the editor berating the wide-ranging restrictions on smoking now imposed on our residents who choose to smoke. Prophetically, she said the next government target would be obesity, where “perhaps the government can declare that obese people may not patronize restaurants.”
On the other side of the issue, the Michiana Point of View contributor that day, Dr. Richard Feldman of Indianapolis, wrote “… the public believes that government should take an active role in combating obesity as a high budget priority. Federal and state governments must create an appropriate financial and organizational effort … .”
No, the public does not believe that more tax dollars and institutional bureaucracies should be created to fight obesity. Each individual is accountable for his own health, and the nanny government must not encroach further on our freedom of choice. If there is to be a movement to make us more healthy it should be a self-educated cultural and social awareness, not a dependency on government. Let’s get the government on track and off our backs. No more! Enough!
Arthur J. Balfour
Dowagiac”
The timing of this entry on your blog is amazing. Needless to say, I must respond to these letters. This is just too good. Thanks, by the way, for clueing us in.
Comment by Justin Bowen — February 2, 2008 @ 10:38 amThere’s another question that needs to be raised here. The NRA (National Restaurant Association) puts food-service employment in Mississippi at about 110,500 people, accounting for about 9.5% of total employment in Mississippi. These people work in the 3,942 food and drink places in MS. The industry grosses about $2.8 annually in MS. What will the impact of this kind of bill be on the state of Mississippi which, as it happens, already has a high unemployment rate and a high obesity rate?
Comment by Justin Bowen — February 2, 2008 @ 11:11 amYou know, I’ve been in Mississippi a few times. I have to think that this will make it illegal for most of the population to eat in restaurants!
As for me, I just checked it, and I have a BMI of 30.2. So I guess I’ll have to lose a few pounds if I want to eat there…
Comment by Brad Warbiany — February 2, 2008 @ 11:58 amDoes the same go for people that do the cooking and the serving, because they should look like the people they can only serve. To have an over weight staff would be a tad contradicting. This is the most regoddamndiculous thing I’ve heard of. What a freakin’ waste of time and money.
Comment by Aimee — February 3, 2008 @ 12:31 amBe careful what you vote for: you just may get it…..
Comment by Harry Rossman — February 3, 2008 @ 8:58 amThe law, as drafted (not the summary on this page) looks childishly simple, but doesn’t make very much sense to me. It isn’t clear to me, for example, if the law prohibits PREPARED food from being given to an obese person in a supermarket, for example, which happens to have five or more chairs for people to sit down and eat prepared food which they bought.
Also, the principle behind this legislation isn’t terribly clear to me: it would seem to me that the logical extension would be to prohibit ANYONE to give ANY food or drink to an obese person, whether by sale or gift. If a restaurant can not serve food to an obese person, then why can they DELIVER food to the home of an obese person (as a pizza parlor)? And if that, too, is prohibited, then it suggests that a delivery boy, after applying a body-mass measuring pincer to a customer who answers the door, is called upon to make a diagnosis of obesity and, based on this diagnosis, either take his pizza back to the restaurant (presumably to be thrown out), or else, put the owner in danger of losing his license. Of course, there should be a fine, I think, imposed on the obese person who placed an order, knowing it was illegal for him to eat: after all, he’s contributing to global warming by having the diagnostician drive there in vain with a pizza that has to be thrown out.
Of course, the REAL problem is that restaurants have to apply to the state for a permit from the state department of health, in the first place.
However, if Mississippi voters see fit to put utter idiots like that inside the legislature, then I don’t think obesity is their biggest problem.
Might we not have a law prohibiting restaurants from serving people with low I.Q.’s?
Comment by Robert — February 3, 2008 @ 8:19 pmI don’t see the connection between the ban on smoking and this proposed ban. Someone smoking in the restaurant affects the people around them. Second hand smoke IS dangerous and CAN kill. I live in California (formerly in Nashville) I have seen both sides of hte smoking ban and far prefer the no smoking enviornment. Even my smoking friends tell me once they got used to it they preffered it sice really it’s pretty disgusting (rude, unappetizing, ad htoughtless IMO) to smoke while there is food on the table and most establishemnts make a patio available for smokers.
On to the current issue. This is absurd and sooo misguided. I have never battled obesity but even from my vantage point I really doubt that this legislation will bring about any positive changes to the obesity problem this country is certianbly facing. There is certianly a major issue no doubt about that. But this is NOT te way to address it. It is blatant discrimmination and it’s absurd.
Oh BTW to the poster who siad eating helthy is more expensive that is a fallacy. By the time you purchase subway, McDonalds, etc you could have easily bought healthy food at the market and prepared it at home for an equal cost and maybe even less. My husband and I did an experiment to prove this and foudn that while organic food can significantly drive up the price it is always cheaper to make healthy food at hime than to buy fast food. If you take into account the cost of healthcare needed as a result of the poor eating you are way way ahead eating at home. It takes a litle planning and effort but in the long run it pays off big time to eat at home- both to your health and your pocket book. I am not naive enough to think that changing your eating habits would fix the problem for all people struggling wiht obesity but if you are talking about eating 10 mini burgers then I would say changing your eating habits would defintely be the place to start. Soe poeple do have physolgical reasons why the are overweight but there is also a tremndous portion of hte population that just plain doesn’t take responsibility for their eating. IN my opinion a better way to impact the obesity issue would be to severly restrict fast food – their advertising, menus, maybe even their existence. But that would be like not selling cigarettes so I’m not suggesting it is a viable option. I do think that fast food is a major problem and if you are eating it you really have no one to blame but yourself for obesity- there is almost nothing on a ast food menu that is healthy. Even the fruit salad has candied walnuts on it and hthe chicken sandwiches are usually fried (the grilled ones are not healthy due to the chemicals on tehm but not too fatty). It’s a shortcut that really doesn’t pay. I think it’s an individuls choice to eat that stuff- a little Darwinian thinning of the herd. We have too mmany people anyhow so I guess those who choose to ought to keep on smoking and eating fast food- just don’t blow the smoke my way or ask me to put that stuff in my mouth.
Comment by Kate — February 4, 2008 @ 2:38 pmAre we slowly becoming Nazi America? It didn’t start here but this is a huge spark for worse things to come in the future. I guess I’ll just have to laugh when businesses start losing money because in case any of these idiots have taken notice, over HALF of the American people are overweight, and then the economy crashes and there’s no one left to blame but those who passed the law.
Comment by Vernon Blouin — February 6, 2008 @ 1:59 pm