Many will recall the bill introduced in Mississippi that would ban restaurants from serving obese people.
Now it seems some recognize that such a law would be unworkable, so they're trying to tweak it along to be more palatable for passage.
A press release today touts the ideas of public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who suggests "Focusing your bill on protecting children rather than adults would remove the major objection to it, and provide a strong argument for it - one likely to be echoed by many groups concerned about child health and welfare."
BELOW IS A DRAFT OF THE MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE REVISED BILL BANZHAF PROPOSES:
No employee of a fast food chain outlet shall serve to any child who appears, to a reasonable person, to be under the age of 16 and to be obese, any single food item reported by the company to contain more than 500 calories, nor any meal where the calories in all of the food items in the meal (including any drinks, but not including sauces not provided at the counter) as reported by the company exceed 1000 calories.
However, all such food items may be served if the child is accompanied by a parent or guardian, or if the child presents a letter or note on the letterhead of a physician, hospital, or other health care entity certifying that he is not obese or that for medical reasons he should be served such food items, or if he or she provides such proof in a form or manner approved by the State Department of Health, including but not necessarily limited to, a wallet-sized card from any of the above sources or from the school which the child attends.
Oy!
Read the full press release here.
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It's a sad world when you have to provide medical proof that you have the right to eat whatever you darn well please. I still can't believe there are people truly wanting this bill to pass. Today it's the obese that lose rights...who is it tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteCheers
Scott Kustes
Modern Forager
Still stinks.
ReplyDeleteSo, now it's only fat children who get refused food. And this is good how?
ReplyDeleteSo the poor fat kid is left hungry while his thin buddied eat junk, what happens? Down the street he goes, tears of shame stinging his eyes, into a store, stocks up on all sorts of junk and takes it home to eat in his room.
Now you have walloped his probably already shaky self-esteem, established that eating must be done in secret, armed the kids who tease him anyway with more ammunition that they could have dreamt of and set him on the road to a lifelong bizarre relationship with food.
Nice idea. Give me patience.
Good Grief! Could this bill get any dumber!
ReplyDeleteI just saw a video of State Rep. John Read saying that they never expected the bill to pass (he said it's dead). They just wanted to use it to bring attention to the obesity problem. Yeah... I'm not buying it.
Melting Mama shared the video on her blog here: http://meltingmama.typepad.com/wls/2008/02/the-bill-is-dea.html
Interesting way to make a point - suppose it was easier than, say, actually doing some research into the situation and suggesting viable solutions?
ReplyDelete(Sarcasm alert)
ReplyDeleteNo employee of a fast food chain outlet shall serve to any child who appears, to a reasonable person, to be under the age of 16 and to be obese, any single food item reported by the company to contain more than 500 calories, nor any meal where the calories in all of the food items in the meal (including any drinks, but not including sauces not provided at the counter) as reported by the company exceed 1000 calories.
Ok, so only individual high calorie foods, or high calorie meals are excluded. That means that the only things on the sandwich list at McD's that would be off limits are:
Quarter pounder w/cheese
Double Quarter pounder w/cheese
Big Mac
Big'n'Tasty w/cheese
Premium grilled chicken club sandwich
Premium crispy chicken club sandwich
Premium grilled chicken ranch blt sandwich
Premium crispy chicken ranch sandwich
Chicken Select Premium Breast Strips (5 piece)
All the other burgers, sandwiches, and chicken nugget/strips are just fine, even though they each pack at least 30-40 g carbs. If you opt for the Premium Crispy Chicken Classic Sandwich, you could pack in a whopping 61 g carbs, while staying within that 500 calorie limit.
With your sandwich choice, you could also have a medium fries worth another 47 carbs.
If you opt for a lower calorie sandwich (same 30-40 g carbs) and small fries (30 g carbs), you could still add as much as another 94 grams of carbs by having a large soft drink.
Staying within the calorie limits, you could still consume as much as 134 g carbs at a single meal.
Breakfast is just as bad. The only items not included in the 500 calorie limit are:
Bacon Egg and cheese biscuit
Sausage Biscuit with egg
Sausage Egg & cheese McGriddles
Big breakfast (large size biscuit)
Deluxe breakfast (reg size biscuit, w/syrup and margarine)
Deluxe breakfast (large biscuit, w/syrup and margarine)
McSkillet Burrito w/sausage
McSkillet Burrito w/steak
Hotcakes and sausage (w/o syrup and margarine)
Not to worry, you can still pack in as much as 48 g carbs with a single item on the menu (Bacon Egg and Cheese McGriddle), even without those items.
With those, you can add in any breakfast drink you like, including the 94 carb large Hi-C Orange Lavaburst. Add in an order of hash browns, which is a real bargain at only 15 g carbs.
Still, your breakfast could easily add up to 157 carbs.
Yep, that'll help a lot - load up on those starchy and sugary carbs, since carbs are so "harmless" and it's those dastardly fats you have to watch out for, even though in most menu items, there are only about 1/3 as many fat grams as there are carbs.
That's just at McD's of course, but surely other restaurants have similar nutritional stats for their menu items. In fact, you could probably put together a meal at Olive Garden that had way more carbs, and still stay well within the calorie limits proposed in this bill, I just can't find the nutrition facts on their site to confirm it.
The mind just boggles at the stupidity and ludicrous nature of such a bill.
Surely there's no chance it'll ever pass?
One can only hope.
oh yeah. it's not already humiliating enough to grow up as an overweight child. how about we publically humiliate them in front of friends, family and strangers in fast food outlets just to make sure the message they're not good enough "takes" and make sure any self-esteem issues are firmly rooted?
ReplyDeletethese people have no soul.