Should the Government Affect Your Eating Choices?
By Ryan Schwertfeger
While the fast food companies may say otherwise, it is known without a shadow of a doubt that fast food is not very healthy or nutritious to eat- just ask Morgan Spurlock. However, the question that many have asked is whether the federal government needs to step in to curb or punish those who make and eat fast food products? Some believe that a higher authority, in this case, the government, needs to get involved in order to encourage healthier eating by discouraging the consumption of unhealthier foods, including fast food. The question is whether the perceived pro of having the government take a role in deciding healthy eating choices is really a pro at all, and to me, it would be a complete and utter con.
From a variety of personal experiences, including the yearly trip to the department of motor vehicles to the once a decade passport screening and application process, government is known for causing headaches to millions of Americans daily. In addition, while I may only be 19 ½ years old, I am fully aware of how slow and sometimes ineffective government can be in my five-year quest to get a dog park in my town. Dealing with local and state government takes lots of time and a boatload of patience with little to no progress to show for it. Now government does have a role in society to keep us safe and to provide some services, but as the food police and the nutritional expert in its citizens’ lives? Please no. Even when the President pursues and is able to pass a healthcare bill through Congress, the federal government cannot even get the measly website to function properly or explain to its citizens what the law is that they passed years previously. And these officials, some elected and many more unnamed, are going to tell me how I should live my life and tell the fast food companies what they can and cannot do?
As Judith Warner points out in her article “Junking Junk Food,” First Lady Michelle Obama has become the face of the anti-obesity campaign in America, encouraging Americans to eat healthier and exercise every day. I believe this is a good role for the government to play, as a body and higher authority that can recommend and inform. But if the government were to take action in order to mandate what people can and cannot eat, and what fast food companies can and cannot sell to its customers, frankly, that is too far. If the government is able to take control over and have a major influence on the fast-food industry, then what could be next? By allowing the government to get involved in regulating fast food, a precedent could be set for future large-scale government involvement in other industries and sectors of the economy – and that’s quite a dangerous precedent at that.
Instead of government controlling the fast food food industry and dictating what consumers can and cannot eat, why does the government not take a backseat and let people control their own destiny? Is that not what the Founding Fathers wanted for America and its people? If someone wants to eat at McDonalds and eat unhealthy food every week, what is wrong with letting that person eat that and have that person deal with the pros and cons that are associated with that lifestyle? Radley Balko thinks just that in his article, “What You Eat Is Your Business,” as he believes that “the best way to alleviate the obesity “public health” crisis is to remove obesity from the realm of public health. It doesn’t belong there anyway. It’s difficult to think of anything more private and of less public concern that what we choose to put into our bodies.” He then proposed that the only government action that should be taken is that healthcare should go back to being something of the individual’s responsibility. Balko says that if it is left up to insurance companies, people with healthy lifestyles will be rewarded with lower costs and premiums and those with poor lifestyles will be forced to pay more for their coverage. I think Balko’s proposal is the best way to deal with obesity as there seems to be nothing in today’s society as important to people as making and saving money. So if people notice their premiums are increasing, that may be a wake-up call that a healthier lifestyle is needed.
All in all, the government has shown time and time again of how it is poorly managed and how it struggles to perform basic functions that are a necessity in today’s fast moving, technological world. If government is the entity that people think would be the best to watch over and regulate the fast food industry, I think that those people have another thing coming. The only sensible and logical solution is to make healthcare focus back on the individual and let each person be responsible for his or her own health choices. That way those who make healthy choices will have no reason to suffer or worry about those who do not make healthy choices; and those who eat unhealthy food will be in control over their own destiny in the costs they pay for healthcare. Government should stay out of health care and eating decisions that their citizens engage in, as previous governmental experiences indicate that once in control of something, the government does not usually do a good job. And with an industry as important as the public’s health, pardon the pun, but it is vital that the government not screw up in the field of healthcare.