Michelle Obama, Liberal Government and Obesity

First Lady, Michelle Obama, has decided to take a whack at solving the American obesity epidemic. Splendid.

She should start by looking at one of the biggest roots of the problem: liberal government and its most favorite project of the past 40 years, the welfare state.

There is a surprising, yet undeniable, correlation between skyrocketing obesity rates and race and socioeconomic status. The group most disproportionately affected by obesity is poor black women.

A survey of the available research on obesity was conducted in 2004 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Human Nutrition. Among the results:

• The U.S. obesity prevalence increased from 13 percent to 32 percent between the 1960s and 2004.
• Women 20-34 years old had the fastest increase rate of obesity and overweight.
• 80% of black women aged 40 years or over are overweight; 50% are obese.
• Less educated people have a higher prevalence of obesity than their counterparts.
• 16% of children and adolescents are overweight and 34% are at risk of becoming overweight in 2003-2004.
• White children and adolescents had the lowest prevalence of overweight and being at risk of overweight compared with their black and Mexican counterparts.

Even holding steady for all other factors, research concludes that poor black women and their children are the most disproportionately affected by skyrocketing obesity rates. The largest single indicator for poverty and, later, dropping out of high school is birth to an unmarried mother. Unmarried women and their children are the largest recipient group of welfare state entitlement programs and also the group most rigidly trapped in failing government schools. In 2007, 72% of all black children born in the USA, were born out of wedlock. You do the math.

There is currently a great amount of research being conducted (most of it taxpayer funded) to determine the causes of obesity in disadvantaged socioeconomic groups and I certainly applaud Michelle Obama for focusing the Nation’s attention on this issue.

One would hope, however, that the first order of business would be a common sense look at how government programs, since the 1960s, mostly pushed by liberal social engineers, may have inadvertently created this problem, or at the very least, heavily contributed to it (no pun intended).

The very first corollary they teach in business school is this: Whenever you solve one problem, you inevitably create other problems.

The object of efficient problem solving, therefore, is to foresee the problems, which will be created by the proposed solution, in order to determine whether the problems created will be worse than the original problem. Only if it can be reasonably determined, in advance, that the solution will produce net improvement all around, is the solution considered a wise business decision.

If only big government bureaucrats were as smart and cautious. If they had looked ahead, we might not be in this mess.

In the 1960s, the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. was 16 percent. By 2004, that rate had increased to thirty-two percent. $14 billion is spent annually on child obesity-related health care costs, American Heart Association president Dr. Tim Gardner said during a recent press conference. Overall, annual obesity-related costs total $117 billion. This is no small problem.

What are the two largest indicators for obesity? Lack of quality education and poverty.

The two largest indicators for poverty are lack of a good education and out-of-wedlock childbirth.

Now, human nature hasn’t changed since the beginning of time and anyone with a single grain of common sense knows that any time a government attempts to alleviate the natural consequences of bad personal choices, then government ends up enabling and encouraging bad choices.

So, what enabling factors have encouraged the rise in obesity among the lowest socioeconomic groups, who are also the most poorly educated?

The liberal welfare state and its coexisting government education system has created a sub-culture of dependent people. A culture of dependence upon others for food, housing, education and medical care has produced an entire class of people for whom the logical consequences of bad personal choices have been largely eradicated through social welfare programs.

In the self-providing household, there is huge incentive to take precautions against obesity.

Hard work requires fit people; non-workers need not worry as much about fitness. Obesity impairs fitness, and therefore, also one’s ability to work. People who must provide for themselves and their children, naturally, take great care to avoid the impediments associated with obesity.

Obese children have more health problems; health problems cost the working family more money. Children’s health problems also interfere with educational progress, stunting their chances later in life to be independent. Working, self-providing families have huge incentives to produce self-sufficient adults, who will not later be a financial drain on aging parents.

No such logical-consequence incentives exist for those willing to become completely dependent upon the largesse of the welfare state.

A family dependent upon others for welfare and medical care hasn’t as much incentive to prevent obesity in its children. This is not rocket science; it’s human nature 101.

Liberal programs in public schools also contribute to the problem.

Since sex education was introduced into our public schools in the 1970s, rather than producing the hoped-for decline in out of wedlock pregnancy and childbirth, these programs have overseen an unprecedented rise in both. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is the largest single indicator for poverty, for both mothers and their children.

Liberal feminists also insisted upon doing away with traditional school programs aimed at preparing young women to raise healthy children. Home economics classes, once required of all American high school girls, taught basic nutrition, meal planning, marketing strategies and healthy food preparation to the people who would be doing the lion’s share of those things for future families – women. Eradicating those programs in an ill-advised quest to “equalize” women has undeniably resulted in generations ill-equipped to provide the basic fundamentals of health to themselves and their children – good nutritional habits. Home economics classes went, but women still prepare the bulk of meals served to children. Result? Women still do the work, but thanks to liberal feminists, no longer are given the tools to do the work well. Rising obesity rates are just the natural consequence of an abundance of food, but no knowledge about how to use this resource to best benefit.

Physical education classes for older children and hard-playing recess for the younger ones, were once (prior to the 1970s) widely recognized for their benefits, not only to physical fitness but also to school discipline and the enhancement of academic success. But once again, a program bearing huge benefit to American school children has been cut in a mis-guided attempt to bolster academic performance. According to a recent CDC survey, only 3.8 percent of elementary schools, 7.9 percent of middle schools and 2.1 percent of high schools provide daily P.E.

Which children are trapped most by public schools, where P.E. is no longer considered budget worthy? Exactly. Poor children, especially those born out of wedlock, keeping them mired in poverty and unable to escape failed public schools. Strenuous physical activity also provides a healthy outlet for excess energy and was always recognized as a benefit to diminishing discipline problems. Discipline problems, of course, now are the plague of public schools. More discipline problems in schools later become crime statistics.

Liberal policies aimed at building self-esteem in children, at the expense of educational standards, have resulted in poorly educated masses.

Liberal policies that put the interests of teacher unions over the quality of education have resulted in all-but-illiterate graduates.

Liberal policies aimed at diluting authority, discipline and dress codes in schools have resulted in less learning opportunities for all.

Liberal policies, which place a higher significance on handing out birth control than on handing out nutrition information, have resulted in more out-of-wedlock births and more obese children.

And the cycle continues.

It’s impossible to track the myriad of destructive results from the liberal government policies of the past 40 years, but one thing is absolutely certain. None of the social/health epidemics of our time, including obesity, are going to improve until liberals begin to rethink the real results of their “good intentions.”

If one wanted to be cynical, one might conclude that liberals — who have supported these destructive programs — hate poor people, most especially poor black women, who have disproportionately borne the brunt of the whole welfare state and its companion, shoddy schools.

As if that hate weren’t enough, liberals hawk abortion to poor black women as the “cure” for all that ails. In essence, liberal programs have created the out-of-wedlock childbirth explosion that, in their eyes, absolutely requires unfettered abortion to stem the tide of dependents. Take away the personal financial consequences of illegitimate birth, and the result is bound to be more illegitimate births. Hence, the liberal welfare state, the feminists’ sexual revolution and abortion are inconvenient handmaids, bound by necessity. Alas, obesity is merely a side issue.

Yet, liberals like Michelle Obama, take a tiny squinting view of the tip of this social iceberg – obesity, hitting hardest at poor black women and their children – and all they can see is a McDonalds menu, greedy, irresponsible agribusiness and a desperate need for more of other people’s money to fix what liberal policies largely created in the first place.

A genuine, hard look in the mirror is just too much to bear for self-congratulating liberals.

Why, it’s enough to make a decent person sick to the stomach.