Well, it happened. The Journal of the American Medical Association devoted an entire issue to obesity. I'm so excited. I'm sure it's now only a matter of months before they publish a "definitive study" on the dangers of second-hand fat. Of course, they'll be using the same rigorous standards applied to studies of second-hand smoke, i.e. none. What potential! The national HealthScareMeisters will soon be thrilling us with news of obscure and absurd health risks associated with free-floating fat molecules. Mechanistic possibilities boggle the mind. No longer will the respiratory and digestive systems be discrete. A new level of osmosis will be discovered (or, perhaps invented?).

I envision headlines decrying the number of traffic related deaths caused by greasy hands on the steering wheel. Mother's Against Fat Drivers will take to the streets, exhorting us to demand drivers voluntarily submit to blood fat content tests during random traffic stops. National legislation will be enacted banning access to snack foods. Vending machines will be crushed and torched in school sponsored bonfires (smoke free?) organized by Fat Free Kids. Just imagine the programming time that will become available to networks as fast food advertising is torn from the screens.

The EPA, in a last desperate grandstand ploy by Carol Browner, will impose draconian exhaust emission standards on McDonald's and Wendy's restaurants. "Our meta-analysis shows," she will solemnly say, "that exposure to second-hand fat molecules spewing forth from fast food establishments causes 5,000 premature deaths each year." Stanton Glantz will immediately extrapolate this number to 83,000 using his mysterious statistical skills.

$100 Billion, $222 Billion. Oh, who cares.

Depending on when and where you picked up your news last month, you learned that obesity "costs" the U.S. either $100 Billion or $222 Billion each year. Hey, in 1993, estimates of total smoking-attributable state medical expenditures only ranged from $79.6 million to $8.72 Billion. Go ahead and add another couple of billion for the Feds. (Of course, if you deduct the tax revenues from cigarettes, government shows a net gain, but they don't like to talk about that, so I won't embarrass them). Obviously smoking "costs" are peanuts compared to obesity. Tax that food! Sue those food purveyors!

And don't forget "premature deaths." (I still haven't figured that one out). According to a brand spanking new study released by New York's St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center, we're told that obesity "leads directly to at least 280,000 every year and perhaps as many as 374,000." Surely they can do better than that! I mean, come on -- what can't you blame on obesity? It's a catchall for every disorder from diabetes to bad backs, indigestion to heart disease. These Fat Scare folks could take a lesson from CDC's Office on Smoking and Health -- they're the industry leaders in Steroid-Enhanced Statistics on lifestyle-related morbidity and mortality.

If you liked anti-smoking, you'll love anti-fatting.

Wiping out obesity is a perfect cause for the Pleasure Police. Even environmentalists can jump into the fray. Fat people take up too much space. They breathe more air. They obviously eat up more valuable resources. They break furniture, thus causing more trees to be cut down or metal to be smelted for new chairs. They use too much fabric for their clothes. More animals die for their larger shoes. They probably even have to drive bigger cars (Hello, Carol, heads up here).

Just wait until you see the anti-fat forces amass. (Can they amass? Will they be too slender to see?) Fat women will be prohibited from bearing children (folic acid supplementation doesn't seem to be as effective if you're overweight "according to one study"). Fat office workers will be prohibited from eating in their buildings. We'll see them huddled with the smokers -- but no closer than 15 feet from the doorways.

The British Medical Association, with ample funding from the R.W. Johnson Foundation, will rush to put Fat Control Journal on line so that the press can cut and paste their press releases on the front pages of America's daily newspapers with electronic ease and speed.

Applying their astonishing ability to ignore science and assess funding possibilities, U.S. "Health" agencies will be sure to announce that saturated fat is a "known human carcinogen." And that second-hand fat is, indeed, about to be listed as a "probable human carcinogen."

I desperately wish I were kidding.

Sorry, folks. As much as I'd like to think this little commentary is a satire, I'm afraid it may not be. The great Tobacco War has proven that science can be corrupted, media can be reduced to lap dogs, and small, well-funded, self-righteous groups can wreak utter destruction on the rights of free speech and private property use.

Just remember, when you hear about 700,000 dying "prematurely" from obesity and inactivity-related illness, that if the numbers correspond to the numbers bruited about regarding smokers, then 500,000 of these folks will be over age 75. Another 150,000 probably came up short in the gene lottery. And maybe (maybe!) 50,000 can actually claim bragging rights to being killed from eating too much and exercising too little.

When the anti-smoker contingent didn't get their way (prohibiting tobacco), they concocted the most amazing array of pseudo-science and socio-political psychobabble about smoking and second-hand smoke that I've ever been privileged to see. It's been a stunning display of special interest corruption over science and common sense. The bigger the lie, the more people seemed to believe it. Are you ready for a whole new level of modern math?

Wanna end an "epidemic"? It's easy.

CDC director, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, calls obesity "a devastating public health threat." Devastating? Public health threat? Oh, right, I forgot -- it's an epidemic. Listen. If you are truly concerned about the current fad for declaring lifestyle choices epidemics, I have the perfect solution. Since cancer and heart disease (whether you smoke or not, are fat or not, or exercise or not) are largely diseases of ageing; since money is more important to government than upholding Constitutional guarantees to personal freedom and enjoyment; and, since it is obviously our public duty to assure that our Critical Thinking Free Kids are spared the burdens of supporting the Social Security system as we gradually fade into senility -- I respectfully suggest that we all agree to die the instant we turn 75.

In that way, everyone can enjoy a hearty lifestyle and spare the government the terrible inconvenience of having to pay for our self-inflicted or genetically programmed diseases. Otherwise, be prepared for the onslaught whinging about the dangers of second-hand inactivity, second-hand television and Internet vacuity and second-hand soft drink-related psychosis.

Oh well. Perhaps some day the tables will turn. There will be a flurry of activity and wired funding designed to prove that self-righteousness causes more premature deaths than all other lifestyles "sins" combined. Come to think of it, self-righteous does bring lively enjoyment and sheer pleasure to a dead halt. Maybe they're dead already and just don't know it.

The Junk Risk Ranger