Take That, Poor People

Five days ago on Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio program, the one that my dad is such a fan of (he has an autographed picture of Rush and, I wouldn't be surprised, probably a tattoo of Rush on his person,) he unleashed this insight worthy of Confuscius:

"I think you might then say that the obesity crisis could be the fault of government, liberal government."

'Oh no he didn't' Oh yes, he did. We all know there is an obesity crisis in this country. In fact, you can't watch a local newscast without seeing at least one of those montages where they just show fat abdomens walking around city streets while a reporter talks about fast food. To be fair, this same obesity crisis is occuring throughout much of the western world, being that we now have a greater abundance of food than ever before, the food we have is chock full of sugar and corn syrup, we have the wealth to buy a lot of it, and thanks to modern technology we only have to do a minimal of physical exertion to get through a day. My pal Rush, though, seems to think that rather than this being a systemic problem due to bad personal choices and a change in the way we live, it is in fact the fault of the "liberal welfare state", and I'm certain also probably the personal fault of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Recent studies have found a link between poverty and obesity, I'm guessing in part because the same poor decision making that can lead to eating poorly can also lead to making bad economic decisions. There's also the fact that while wealthy people can afford quality food and gym memberships, poor people not so much. There are complexities, and also many exceptions (you've seen tons of thin poor people and plenty of hefty rich people). But Rush seems to think it's all the fault of food stamps, because as you know, the government hands out so many of them and that the people who get them can just afford reams of food with them. A single food stamp in fact can be used to purchase over 3 tons of delicious Chewy Chip A-Hoy (it's true, look it up).

For some reason Rush thought it would help his argument to point out that the states with the highest incidence of obesity are also states with high poverty rates, and the states with the lowest incidence of obesity are states with lower poverty rates. Those poor states? Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Yes, those five, liberal states. Oh, wait, those look like awfully Red States to me; states where Republicans hold a majority, and who support a Republican president and hold to Republican values. The five least obese states? Colorado, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, and root-of-all-liberal-evil Massachusetts. This list looks a little bluer to me. Do I think there's any connection? Honestly, no, but if Rush is going to make this a partisan food fight, maybe he should make sure he's not whipping cupcakes at his friends.

His argument is that because people are poor, they must be getting handouts in the forms of food stamps, food drives, soup kitchens...and we are just overfeeding these poor bastards (pun intended). I wonder how many food stamps the government is forcing on Rush Limbaugh each week, because he's not so trim himself (though he did lose a lot of weight when he was illegally abusing prescription drugs). Correlation does not equal cause and effect, and I think the correlation in this case has more to do with the individuals and with cultural values than with welfare. It also doesn't help that you can buy a 2 litter bottle of soda for less than a bottle of water, or a bag of chips for less than a bag of apples. When people are forced to make choices based on a limited income, they tend to go for quantity rather than quality, and it's not because we're giving them too many food stamps, Rush.

So Mr. Limbaugh, if you'd like to have a discussion about our warped values system or about a health crisis in the United States, we're happy to have you at the roundtable. If however you'd like to talk about how liberals are making people fat, then first perhaps you should push yourself back from the dinner table and have a good look in the mirror.