Exercise Mandate Proposed By England’s Chairman of Health

England is the fattest nation in the European Union (EU) and as a result, Professor Julian LeGrand, England’s Chairman of Health has proposed that a mandatory exercise hour be provided at the workplace.  It’s 1984 in 2007.

In case you missed it, England has become the fattest nation in the EU.  When England sits around the continent, she really sits around the continent.  I’m telling you ladies and germs, England is so fat that she shows up on satellite photos.  But seriously, London’s latitude and longitude might be 51 32 N, 0 5 W but her belt size is “Equator,” and to fix England’s weight problem Professor LeGrand wants all companies with more than 500 employees to set aside an hour a day for exercise.

LeGrand also wants all smokers to register with the government so that they can be issued a “Smoker’s Permit” that would be required in order to be able to purchase tobacco products.  According to LeGrand’s logic instituting this Smoker’s Permit leaves the choice not to buy the permit – and go smoke free – to the individual.

Given that the people have already given the government the choice to ban certain habits and foods, it’s not a surprise that a government person would propose mandatory exercise, registering smokers and requiring permits for the purchase of tobacco. After all, making people exercise is a better way to help people get healthier than is banning foods and habits.

Mandatory exercise is coming.  Thirty years ago who would have thought that foods would be banned?  F. Paul Wilson did.  Check him out.

The paternalists can yell and scream all they want about the evils of fat and tobacco, but the bottom line is that exercise is the only bona fide, guaranteed, researched-backed method to improve health.

But this isn’t the point.

It’s also good for people to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night, so should the government start conducting bed checks?  Will Professor LeGrand propose that the government force his fat and sleepy countrymen to get between the sheets at 11pm?  What’s the next bad habit that the government will set its sights on? What’s the next choice that the authorities will make for us and that the populace will willingly give up?

Professor LeGrand and his cronies can dress this proposal in whatever clothing that they choose, but the bottom line is that the government is, and has been, taking away people’s choices. Next up is mandatory exercise. What other habits will people have to take up at the behest of the authorities?

And the bottom line is that if the governments of the world were really concerned with the public’s health they would outlaw tobacco.  Not just take the wimp move of banning smoking.  But declare tobacco illegal.  If tobacco is a killer the governments that have been trying to protect “us” should ban it.

But governments are feckless, especially in the face of tobacco money.  Or in the case of banning tobacco, lost tobacco money. So they grandstand and pretend to care.  Unfortunately, people have let governments have their way with them for so long that they’ve lost their will to fight, been lulled into thinking that they actually need Big Brother.

So in the end, people will continue to get fat and out of shape.  They will smoke cigarettes purchased with a Smoker’s Permit and eat fried foods, until the government bans those habits, and maybe even walk on government-issue treadmills following government-designed cardio programs.

Things won’t get any better.

The people have spoken and want to be led down this path.  It’ll take some kind of upheaval to change this course.

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