Three legislators in Mississippi want to make restaurants into an obesity police:
House Bill No. 282, which was introduced this month, says: Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.
The proposal would allow health inspectors to yank the permit from any restaurant that "repeatedly" feeds extremely overweight customers.
The article also points out that about two thirds of Mississippians are thought to be overweight.
The proposal is most unlikely to pass, of course. But it's pretty disgusting and also politically stupid, given the numbers of overweight voters in the state. I now want to know the body weights of those three legislators. Also their alcohol consumption levels, their exercise patterns, the kinds of things they eat and whether they have ever been rude to little children or the elderly. Indeed, I want to know all their failings and I want them made public so that we can all police them appropriately.
Why not just put some kind of a sticker on fat people? Then we all know whom to taunt and despise, for their own good, of course.
You may have figured out that I truly hate this particular kind of human cruelty: the minding of other people's business by those who are lucky enough to have their own faults invisible. Wouldn't it be fun if mean people could be denied access to shared spaces because they are mean and likely to cause havoc in those spaces? Wouldn't it be lovely if greedy politicians had to carry a label saying how much they have stolen from their constituents? Of course we'd do this For Their Own Good; to make them better human beings.
All that shaming would be fun, too. I'm sure the fat people would love to join in with that, given how much shaming they are expected to accept.