DAILY DIARY – DEBUNK THE JUNK, APRIL 7, 2004

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Receipt available as a pdf

“So somebody ate at McDonalds for a month and got sick.  If you ate nothing but broccoli for a month, you'd be dead.  Hit the hot apple pies, they're really good.  Bon appetite.”  – e-mail from Michael to Soso Whaley

“We're going to sue them and sue them and sue them. And somewhere a jury's going to buy this, and then the floodgates are going to open.” – Trial Lawyer John Banzhaf referring to the potential cash cow of obesity lawsuits

Day 7:  Habits.  Over the next 30 days, I am going to change my eating habits, eating less and more healthfully in order to lose weight.  The bad news:  Habits can be hard to break.  I’m not talking about changing good habits such as brushing your teeth, cleaning your home, or exercising; it’s the bad habits that cause us so much trouble.  If you have a habit of overindulging every time you eat, you will gain weight and you will suffer the medical consequences of your eating habits.  The good news:  Habits can be changed.  Not without some effort but they can be changed from bad to good in a relatively short period of time. 

It doesn’t make any difference what type of bad habit it is—biting your nails, smoking, overeating, sloppiness.  Any habit can be overcome and controlled with the right amount of will power, and we all have the ability to change ourselves if there is truly a desire to do so.  The only problem is that some of these bad habits, once broken, will nag at you constantly in an effort to re-establish their hold over your life.  For instance I stopped smoking cigarettes quite a few years ago, but still find it an almost daily battle to avoid having a smoke.  It is only sheer will power that keeps me from back sliding into my 1 pack a day habit.  I have taken “personal responsibility” for my actions and my own health and enjoy the control I have over my own choices.

Recently the “Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act” passed its first test in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The House responded to the majority of American citizens (89 percent) who feel that these lawsuits are frivolous and unnecessary.  I encourage all <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />U.S. citizens who feel that personal responsibility is the answer to our perceived “obesity epidemic” to contact their Senator and voice support for this bill as it passes through the Senate.  Introduced by Rep. Rick Keller (R-FL), the personal responsibility bill is designed to protect restaurants and food producers from being harassed by trial lawyers with their costly obesity lawsuits. 

I applaud Rep. Keller and those in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted in favor of the bill for standing up to questionably motivated trial lawyers like John Banzhaf and food nanny wannabes such as Marion Nestle whose only interest is in power over American citizens and cold hard cash.  Damn the public interest and personal responsibility, these people not only want control over your life through Twinkie taxes and regulations, they want to take away your freedom of choice.  As Americans we are duty bound to prevent this from happening or we will no longer live in the “Land of the Free”.