France has announced that it will be adding an extra tax to sugary soft drinks in an effort to combat childhood obesity. The childhood obesity cover story is a sham, as this tax is just an attempt to raise revenue for a government that has spent itself into insolvency. Using the childhood obesity epidemic as a ruse to raise money is cynical, perverse and twisted.

French officials are patting themselves on the backs as they announce that this tax will raise 100 million Euros annually for the government coffers and also be used to lower social security charges on farm workers. So how is this going to fight childhood obesity? Here’s a statement from a great example of a full-of-baloney public official, French MP Gilles Carrez, “This project will have both health benefits as children turn away from sugary drinks, and revenue benefits for our core agricultural workforce.” This is the worst kind of political bullshit.

If anything, Monsieur Carrez and the French government now have a vested interest in their kids, and all citizens, drinking as much soda as possible so that they can raise money for stuff and for France’s agricultural workforce. Meanwhile, governments, so-called public health officials and citizen suckers all around the globe will applaud this maneuver. After all, it’s for the kids! If the government really cared about les enfants they would ban the drinks that are causing so much harm, or charge the fat kids and parents and adults more for consuming them. If the French had any intention of helping their citizens they would put the revenues from the sugar/fat tax into a fund that would be used for health related purposes. Yea, right.

The worst case scenario for these French phonies would be for people to truly turn away from soda and, as a result, not collect the anticipated revenue from this tax. This is as oxymoronic as you can get. Think about how foolish Monsieur Carrez’s position is. Institute a punitive tax on an “undesirable” consumable as a way to raise needed revenue, but hope that the tax dissuades people from buying the allegedly unhealthy consumable, thus not raising the needed revenue! How thrilled would the French experts be to find out that their tax really did keep people from buying regular soda?

And there’s more. Do you think the soda companies will stand to see their market share deteriorate over a couple of pennies tax? Of course not, so they will lower their price so that people don’t stop buying their product. These companies are experts at Value Engineering (lowering prices while raising profits) and will wind up making themselves, and the French government, plenty of money.

Don’t kid yourself; these fat taxes are not about health and are nothing more than a governmental money grab.

The good news about the new season of NBC’s hit television show “The Biggest Loser” is that there is no more Jillian Michaels. The bad news is that everybody else is still there.

I have heard all of the defenses of the show; it’s popular, people lose weight, it’s inspirational. These rationalizations reveal just how low we have set the bar, how little we’ve come to expect and how “un-critical” our thinking is.

The show is exploitative and anything but inspirational. A handful of people are hand-picked from a figurative sea of troubled contestants. So-called fitness professionals engage in various forms of physical and emotional abuse, employ the worst kind of pop psychology and get into areas that are beyond the appropriate scope of practice. In short, the trainers behave towards clients in a manner that would get them fired in the real world.

The show worships at the alter of weight-loss and exudes negativity, from the title of the show to the attitudes of the trainers. There have been news stories detailing the methods the show’s producers use to keep past contestants from talking in public about their experiences on the show. If the show, and the contestant experience, is so fantastic and life-changing why not allow unfettered access to those who have been lucky enough to be a part of it?

I would love to hear from the people who went through the entire process and got on the show, only to be voted off the first week because they lost only 15-pounds instead of 20. How uplifting and inspirational do you think the first week’s loser’s story is? How do you think they are doing now.

This year the contestants will have the privilege of working with under-achieving tennis player and pin-up girl Anna Kournikova. The producers of the show have lowered the bar to the point where they aren’t even aspiring to get a “celebrity personal trainer” on staff; being famous and looking good in a tennis skirt is the new criteria. Super.

Actually, since “The Biggest Loser” is an appearance-based show at least the producers upgraded their training staff. I can’t imagine anyone pining for the days of Jillian.

So let the dysfunctional, weight-loss games begin.

It’s the time of year when we start to get all the ridiculous, “Get a Bathing Suit Body For the Summer,” articles. I am constantly amazed that this crap gets re-cycled every year in magazines, newspapers and television shows. The same weight loss based garbage every year. I cannot believe editors keep asking for these stories and writers keep churning them out. And people pay attention to them.

In general, weight loss goals are a bad idea. “Weighing less” is meaningless. Making a short-term effort to lose 15-pounds by Memorial Day, even if you do it, will usually be worse for you in the long run, and doesn’t even mean that you will look better.

Set a goal of improving performance of a given task by the time you have to get into your bathing suit rather than focusing on weight or appearance. If you can’t do a push-up, make a concerted effort to do a push-up. And if you can do 5, work to be able to do 10. The same goes with just about any other exercise, especially the ones you avoid because you can’t do them or because they are “too hard.”

Pursuing these performance-based goals will give you the best chance to appreciably change your look while improving your fitness and capability level. Over a 6-8 week period if you work diligently to improve your performance you WILL look better.

The catch is you have to work hard at things that are hard to do; 60-yard shuttles, squats, jump rope, push-ups, pull-ups. In my experience these are all activities that most people avoid because of their degree of difficulty, but at the same time represent the opportunity give a person the chance to truly improve. Weight loss doesn’t represent improvement, but learning how to do pull-ups or any of these other meaningful tasks – genuinely trying – is the definition of improvement.

And even if you don’t reach your goal, whether it’s doing a pull-up, a push-up, completing five 60-yard shuttles in a given period of time, you will have improved your performance and will NOT have failed. People who set out to lose weight, and don’t, or do and gain it back, always feel like they have failed.

In this third, and final, installment of my Modest Proposal Regarding the Obesity Epidemic, I will focus on how “The Biggest Loser” can save us all from the horrors of obesity and latent obesity, and how that it’s clear that we must be thinner at all costs.

Speaking of, “The Biggest Loser,” it is clear that this authoritarian method of health and fitness should be adopted as the national and global philosophy of dealing with fat people. The fitness profession should accept the fact that this system works; select from thousands a handful of people who fit a specific profile, browbeat them constantly mentally and physically for at least 8 hours a day, force them to make the “weight-loss equals health” connection, and make them feel like failures when they can’t live up to the expectations of the Apparatchiks. And of course, pick only one winner because losing the most weight is the most important thing ever.

The genius of, “The Biggest Loser,” is that it takes advantage of the Stockholm Syndrome to achieve its goals. We must harness this power if we are to coerce people into living the lifestyle that is best for them. And I mean coerce in the most positive way possible.

In a global system of mandatory weight-loss and exercise, these Apparatchiks can match-up fat people with the instructors that would have the best chance to make them lose weight. Fat kids would be separated from their fat parents and the non-fat kids of fat parents would be put in a Fat Foster Home program for obvious reasons. The reward system should be set-up so that until and unless weight loss is achieved these fat families will not be allowed to reunite, and even then these families would be subject to constant monitoring and frequent re-education refresher courses.

Despite the fact that a growing body of legitimate research shows that being underweight carries just as many, if not more, risks than being overweight, reasonable people should agree that it is way better to be thinner, regardless of the existence of these null studies. Just like with Global Warming, we can’t let scientific findings dissuade and discourage us, or get us off message. We know people are too fat and too unhealthy and these people need our help, no matter what science says. The diseases that are associated with being thin clearly must be preferable to the diseases associated with being fat.

Despite the indications that people can be healthy at any weight and that a one-size-fits-all approach to dieting and weight loss is fiction, clearly as a people, we are much better off being virtuous and thin.

This is part two of my essay, “A Modest Proposal Regarding the Obesity Epidemic.” Everyone is either obese, fat, getting fatter or going to be fat and we can stave off and alleviate this catastrophic pandemic if we follow my prescription.

There has been a lot of emphasis on dietary issues over the past few years, but these half measures haven’t been bold enough. It’s time to flat out ban fatty foods and sugary drinks. And tobacco, too. The government shouldn’t just tax people for consuming soda and Big Macs and smoking cigarettes, and let them go on their merry, fat way. The government has to take these products out of the hands, and mouths, of the people. Of course, just like with any other piece of major legislation, our politicians should exempt themselves from these bans, as elected officials are clearly able to control their appetites.

There needs to be government re-education camps for those who are not fat, but still choose to consume whatever they please. After all, it looks bad to have people running around eating and drinking whatever they like and doing things counter to the ways of the Food Poilce. For their own good, and the good of all the fat people, people who want the freedom to consume need to learn that this “freedom” is the reason we have all of these horrendous problems, whether or not these people themselves are fat or display any signs of disease.

It takes a village to help people lose weight and live a healthy life, and people who eat poorly but aren’t overweight and don’t show signs of any disease need to see the errors of their ways. The message needs to be sent that there are consequences to suffer from exercising free-will, a notoriously undisciplined impulse, especially in nutritional matters. A great indication that these camps are needed are the little brats in the Chicago public school system who are turning up their noses at healthy lunches and need to be taught a lesson.

The Chinese have made fantastic use of a system called, “Re-education Through Labor,” where the police, without oversight from the judicial system, can incarcerate people (for up to 4 years) for minor offenses. This system would be perfect to change people’s eating habits and combat the obesity epidemic. There is no need to involve the judicial system and waste time contending with due process when it comes to matters of fatness, as the scale, a tape measure and the BMI computation can serve as the judge and jury. The habits of drinking alcohol and smoking can serve as prima facie evidence that a person needs to spend time in a camp.

These labor camps will serve many purposes; they will re-educate, they will force people to lose weight for their own good, they will force people to exercise for their own good, they will provide jobs and cheap labor, which in turn will create goods that we can sell at home and abroad. These Re-education Through Labor camps are a win-win for everyone involved.

The Food Police, should change their name to “Public Health Bureaus,” and have a real, tangible purpose and be free to operate in everyone’s best interests without worrying about our pesky legal system or the inconvenience of having to provide scientific basis for any or their edicts or actions. Added benefits to incorporating this Re-education Through Labor system are that people would be able to exercise the whole time they are under control of the State and, since the Chinese own everything in the US and will be taking over soon, using this program is a good way to suck up to our eventual masters.

Just like the government knew best and created internment camps during World War II to deal with the domestic threat from Japanese-Americans, our elected officials owe it to us to put the obese, potentially obese, and sure to be obese into diet and exercise camps. These camps would be more intense than the re-education camps, and would be like living an episode of “The Biggest Loser,” 24/7. We are in the midst of a staggering crisis and everything possible needs to be done to avert the Obesity Armageddon.

In my next installment, I will discus how the show, “The Biggest Loser,” can save us all from the horrors of obesity and latent obesity.

Since everyone is either obese, fat, getting fatter or going to be fat I have some suggestions as to how we can stave off and alleviate this catastrophic pandemic. This is Part 1 of my essay entitled, “A Modest Proposal Regarding the Obesity Epidemic. After the complete essay is posted I will continue to make entries using this title, as the obesity epidemic requires us to be flexible in our approach and tactics.

First and foremost, since it is clear that individuals are incapable of feeding themselves, it’s obvious that we need to put the government in charge of food and beverage consumption and exercise enforcement. Since we need a worldwide solution to this epidemic of unprecedented proportions, perhaps the United Nations can oversee and coordinate the efforts of nations around the world.

Can anyone imagine a more potent and effective combination than the joining of the UN with various governments? For example, the efficiency the US government has displayed in running the postal service and social security program – among other well-run and profitable operations such as Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac – will be a fantastic compliment to the proven efficacy of the UN.

And one more thing; let’s stop using the euphemism “Western Diet,” when referring to the reason for this universal fatness when we all know that it’s America’s fault. It isn’t Canada’s fault or Mexico’s misconduct, Great Britain’s food stinks, the French aren’t fat and don’t export fast food culture, nobody has ever seen a fat Spaniard, and the Mediterranean Diet is perfect. So let’s be open and honest and blame America for expanding waist lines and the other fat-related maladies. We cannot be fooled by America’s dominance in many sports and by the fact that America leads the way when it comes to promoting exercise and nutritional causes at almost every level of society through a variety of governmental and quasi-governmental agencies. The Western Diet is America’s Diet, and America’s Diet is making the world fat and killing people.

As a matter of fact, America has even made other countries’ cuisines fattening and unhealthy. Mexican food is a prime example of how America can ruin a country’s food and make people overeat by the simple act of embracing the food of other cultures. Chinese food, as well.

The statistics tell us that obesity has been on the rise since 1980 – the year Ronald Reagan took office – so it’s just as clear that the Reagan/Bush administrations are to blame for America exporting obesity around the world and created a huge mess for others to deal with. Let’s not quibble over the fact that the definition of what constitutes obesity was changed in 1998, which immediately created 30% more obese people, without these people even eating a single Whopper or chugging a Big Gulp. Just as obvious, is that there were 30% more people out there who had a problem and didn’t realize it; it took a change in a calculation to get people to take notice.

And for the good of all citizens of the world, especially the children, let’s avoid the unseemly act of pointing out the serious flaws with the Body Mass Index (BMI). Bangladesh, a country known for its healthy ways, sports a national BMI reading of approximately (and enviably) 20, which is smack dab in the middle of the normal weight category. We shouldn’t dwell on the fact that Bangladesh life expectancy is 66 years (what it was in America almost 100 years ago) versus America’s 78 years. Americans are fat and diseased and living longer because of pharmaceutical intervention, while spreading this disease around the globe. It’s obviously better to weigh less, so let’s stop arguing and work together to make people lose weight and force them to conform to a healthy lifestyle. Plus, Western Cultural Bias is clearly responsible for the negative impression people hold regarding the Bangladeshi lifestyle.

The government has helped us avoid a major economic downturn, high unemployment, eroding home prices and a catastrophic loss of consumer confidence, and will help protect us from ourselves and our inevitable fatness. The various government agencies that developed the Food Pyramid, and it’s various iterations, obviously have it right.

But back to solutions….I’ll get to these solutions in Part 2 of my Modest Proposal Regarding the Obesity Epidemic.

I have a whole stack of fitness stuff that’s been piling up in my in-box that I have been meaning to share.

Study Finds Caloric Info on Menu Doesn’t Alter Ordering Habits. What is amazing is that someone had to actually take the time to conduct a study on this, and not the findings that people won’t change their ordering habits as a result of being told how many calories are in their food. This study and the comments made by the researchers reveal just how little these academics know about the people they study, how little they get about human nature.

This isn’t the first study to reach this conclusion, as other studies have shown putting calorie counts on menus has little, if any affect on people’s ordering habits. This whole endeavor is a huge waste of time and resources and the Food Police should move on to other issues. Surely, they will continue to try to legislate our behavior, for if they cannot incite people to change habits of their own volition, they will eventually use force. As matter of fact conflicting and/or overlapping state and federal legislation is sure to make this a government-led comedy of errors.

Makers of Power Balance Energy Wristbands Admit There’s No Science Behind Their Product. Really? Here’s another story that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone; there isn’t scientific proof that holographic images, just like the ones found on a credit card, have no powers to improve, “balance, strength and energy.” What’s next, the makers of the Shake Weight admit that holding a huge vibrator isn’t better than doing few repetitions of lifting weights? I know, let’s not get crazy here…

The company that makes this “product” has already been punished and forced to pay a huge fine in Australia, has had to fess up to a lack of real evidence to back-up the claims made for their wristbands, and pled guilty to violations of Australia’s Trade Practices Act. They also had to refund the Australian suckers who fell for the scam. Two and a half million bracelets (at $30 a pop) were sold down under. How long before the advertisements for Power Balance Energy Wristbands contain a disclaimer? Oh, and people will still buy them. Maybe the Power Balance people can strike a deal with the makers of the Shake Weight.

A History of Diet Failures is on Display at the Library of Congress. There is a new exhibit at the Library of Congress that features advertisements for some of the ridiculous diet programs that have been pushed on people over the years. If you read about some of these diets in the USA Today account of this exhibit you might – actually, you should – think to yourself, “Hmm, these diets don’t sound that much worse than the crap us enlightened folks in the 21st Century fall for.”

What’s more ridiculous, a diet that tells you it’s safe, easy and effective to lose weight by eating cookies or smoothies or one that promotes the consumption of a special kind of bean or using an electric device that “shakes” the weight off? Seriously, is the Bile Bean Diet that much worse than the diet nonsense that we are bombarded with these days? Is the claim of weight loss from taking a bath that much more outrageous than the claim that you can lose weight while sleeping?

Rather than using this exhibit as a way to promote the meddling ways of our so-called “public health officials,” this should be an occasion to point out the futility of dieting, and get people to move away from the misguided and unhealthy practice of following diets. However, since the diet industry sucks billions of dollars per year out of our pockets we can look forward to a future exhibit featuring advertisements of failed diets from this era.

Don’t Go Gluten-Free Unless You Have a Gluten Allergy. One of the recent diet fads is to remove gluten from the diet as a way to lose weight and improve health. Well, there’s no indication that going gluten-free will help you lose weight and, more importantly, there’s no indication there are any health benefits from avoiding gluten. However, this won’t stop the gluten-free train from leaving the station. There will be celebrity gluten-free diet books (there already are, but there will no doubt be more) and maybe even a gluten-free workout program. Hey, why not?

The American Dietetic Association says that there is no reason to avoid gluten unless you have a gluten sensitivity. But their voice, and the voice of others who try to get the message out that gluten-free isn’t effective, will be drowned out by those who have something to sell. Have you noticed that people who promote diets always have something to sell? That should tell you something.

New Year’s health and fitness related resolutions – the more involved the worse they are – are bad ideas, so don’t make any. Especially bad are weight-loss based pledges and any kind of plan that involves a fast a furious start covering all things diet and exercise.

I may sound like a party-pooper but the reality is New Year’s resolutions don’t work. For every success story the are thousands of “failed” resolutions. The start of the new year is actually a terrible time to try to make changes to your lifestyle, especially if you live in places where winter hits hard.

Here are five reasons New Year’s fitness resolutions don’t work.

1) The start of a new year is actually a terrible time to make changes to your lifestyle – It is difficult to make changes to your lifestyle because there are so many obstacles at the start of a new year. Schedules change, the weather is lousy in most places and the dreary nature of the winter months make it extremely difficult to make meaningful changes to your lifestyle starting January 1.

2) Weight-loss is a terrible goal – Despite what you may read in the mainstream media weight-loss is not indicative of improved health and/or fitness. The vast majority of people have developed an unhealthy and unrealistic association between weight and health and using weight-loss as a measure of success is a recipe for failure. Those folks who pick the arbitrary “20-pound weight-loss goal,” are the most likely to fail. Also, there is reason to believe that our bodies hold on to fat during the cold, winter months and trying to lose weight is fighting our biology.

3) People try to make too many changes to their lifestyle – The more drastic the changes a person resolves to make, the more likely they are to fail. People who have neglected themselves for any period of time will find it nigh impossible to make big-time changes to their diet while embarking on an exercise program. People who are able to start fast and furious burn-out or get frustrated when the results are slow in coming when they hit the inevitable plateau.

4) People don’t truly understand what it takes to maintain consistency in their lifestyle – It’s easy to say you’re going to exercise and “eat better.” Personally, I think a lot of people make proclamations about their resolutions without having any real intent to follow through on them, and the more vocal someone is about their plans the less-likely they are to be successful. The bottom line is that it is hard to maintain a regular routine and even tougher to start one. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

5) People don’t have the patience to make necessary changes over the long-term – The majority of people do not have the patience to be properly consistent with their diet and exercise. Fitness/health doesn’t happen quickly and/or easily. The problem is that the quick fix/fast and easy solution has been over-sold to the general public. Magazines proclaim that you can lose inches fast, lose weight fast, get a six-pack abs fast and none of this is true. The result is that when people actually try and don’t get the fast results, they get frustrated and give up.

The bottom line is that if you want to make changes to your lifestyle give yourself the chance to be successful and don’t make it tougher than it already is; a New Year’s resolution is not the way to go.

In 1978 F. Paul Wilson wrote a short story titled, “Lipidleggin’” that at the time surely was considered crazy. Over 30 years later Wilson’s story is closer to reality than I’m sure the author ever thought would be possible.

“Lipidleggin’” tells the story of a small town grocer who deals in the real thing; butter and eggs. Wilson looked into the future and saw a day when the government would control what we eat; he saw the Food Police. In Wilson’s future-view real butter and eggs are illegal and selling the good stuff – not the garbage produced as a result of the “Lipid Laws” – will get you put in jail.

As Wilson’s story goes, “The National Health Insurance program found out that they were spending too much time taking care of people with diseases nobody was likely to cure for some time.” Since it was a “crisis” the president declared a state of emergency, Congress passed legislation because people clearly didn’t know how to take care of themselves and, as a result, were too much of a strain on the health care system.

For the “national interest,” and “for people’s own good,” the government rationed, then banned, foods that were high in cholesterol and saturated fats, then did away with tobacco and hard booze. Wilson also talks about the coming campaign against being overweight – bad health risk, you know – and a ban on clothing over a certain size.

Sound familiar?

Wilson’s “Lipidleggin’” reminds me of Hemmingway’s, “The Killers.” Simple dialog, simple story and a believable bad guy; in this case, the government. I don’t want to tell you any more, read the story for yourself.

If you don’t think this wind is blowing across the plains you haven’t been paying attention. Read “Lipidleggin’.“

During this time of year ridiculous holiday eating guidelines are published in just about every magazine and newspaper in the land and are featured on web sites and television news and information shows. My advice; totally ignore them.

The Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays are a time when you should enjoy all the special food and drink that make their annual appearance starting today. This is not the time to start a diet – there’s never a good time to diet – to stress about food or attempt to make major changes to your lifestyle. Rather than worry about what you’re going to eat at parties and family gatherings and fret over missing workouts, embrace the pumpkin pie, egg nog, stuffing and whatever food and drink you love and forget about the gym.

To be honest, if you’ve been lazy all year don’t compound your mistake and try to compensate by avoiding foods, dieting or starting an exercise program now.

Who wants to low-fat, low-sugar pumpkin pie? I eat about 6 pieces of pumpkin pie a year and I’m not going to waste time eating the ersatz stuff. If anyone tries to tell you that eating 4 or 5 pieces of pie – or any of the food you love – over a couple of day period is going to result in weight gain or have a negative effect on your health, tell them to shut the heck up. Also, ignore people who like to talk about how “good” they eat and have tips and rules about how to avoid eating “bad” foods.

There’s no such thing as bad food. People, on the other hand, now that’s a different story.

And about the gym. I’ll tell you, I cannot wait to take a break from working out and blow off the gym for a couple of extra days. We are like batteries. We need to be recharged regularly. When a battery runs low on juice you don’t keep using it, you replace it or recharge it. We can’t replace our batteries, so we have to recharge. The holiday season is a great time to back off from the gym and recharge. Take it from me, I’m a professional.

So when faced with the opportunity to spoon a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy on your plate, take it. If you have to choose between your aunt’s old school real sugar, butter and milk pumpkin pie and some no-fun relative’s “healthy” option, make your aunt happy and eat 2 pieces.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and start the holiday season on the right foot.