Ernestine Chasing Hawk: Imagine a world where being fat is illegal

Friday, July 20, 2018

Declaring a war on fat

By Ernestine Chasing Hawk
Native Sun News Today Correspondent
nativesunnews.today

A friend of mine once wrote a “satirical” letter from Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender to the public as a way to make a point. Unfortunately many people took his editorial seriously which caused a bulwark of havoc for the Mayor. I didn’t write it Stevie, Jimmy did.

Well I was thinking I could do this same thing to get my point across about addiction. So here goes. I know I’m going to get “the back lash” (ouch) but let’s pretend that we live in a world where it’s against the law to be fat, obese, over weight.

Being overweight can be caused by an addiction to food right?

Being obese causes a plethora of diseases including heart disease, strokes, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, certain types of cancer, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, gallstones and gallbladder disease, fatty liver disease and kidney disease.

For the United States health care costs are conservatively estimated at $70 to $100 billion a year as well as reductions in life expectancy by 5 to 20 years.

Obesity is gaining on smoking as the leading cause of premature death in North America. New studies also show that obesity causes one in five cancer deaths.

A Department of Health spokeswoman in the U.K. stated, “The Secretary of State has already mentioned that tackling obesity and diabetes will be one of his major priorities for the new government term.”

So let’s pretend that the U.S. Government bans overeating and declares a “War on Fat,” and the government allocates $45 Billion dollars to fight this “War on Fat.”

Certain foods are banned for people determined to be obese and laws are passed that make it criminal for fat people to possess the banned foods that include candy, pop, chips, ice cream and pastries. They also ban fat people from fast food restaurants that serve fried foods.

New sentencing guidelines are instituted that make getting caught trying to buy, eating or possessing the banned foods a misdemeanor the first two times and if caught the third time, a felony. It is also determined that any fat person found to have gained more than 10 pounds be arrested and charged with criminal weight gain.