The irony, too, is that right-wing griping about the food police can converge uncannily with the left-wing "fat acceptance" movement. This movement, which champions the idea that fat people are an oppressed group and that disapproval of obesity is a form of bigotry, advocates its own nanny-statism -- such as demanding that businesses provide special accommodations for obese employees and consumers. It also seeks to stifle politically incorrect attitudes toward fatness. Recently, Maura Kelly, a blogger for the women's magazine Marie Claire, found herself the target of irate blog posts and hate mail after she expressed the view that obesity is not only unhealthy but esthetically offensive, and something most people have "a ton of control over."
True, the cult of thinness poses its own health risks, including dangerous diets and eating disorders. It is equally true that no one, adult or child, should be treated cruelly because of body weight. But the answer is not to go to the other extreme and normalize, if not glamorize, obesity or the lifestyle choices that create it.
Conservatives have often argued that, in order for a free society to flourish, individual freedom must be coupled with self-restraint. Perhaps some appreciation of this old-fashioned virtue is just what's needed in the debate over food and fat.
At least the closing thought is OK. I had snarked about "fat studies" here.
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