Crossing the Lines

Surely “politicians gone wild” was not the intent of Michelle Obama’s fight against childhood obesity. But you know what they say about the path to you know where being paved with good intentions. From the banning of chocolate milk in schools to the recent suggestion by an Illinois state senator that parents of overweight children be denied the standard tax deduction on their tax returns Obama’s initiatives to combat the problem of childhood obesity have resulted in a runaway train that doesn’t show signs of slowing down any time soon. She has said she hopes one of her legacies will be her work in reducing childhood obesity; commendable yes, but by involving the federal government in an effort to enforce her “Let’s Move” campaign the possibility of violated personal freedoms becomes a very real threat. When the government decides what we will eat or not eat, when schools deny parents the right to provide their own children’s lunches, or when school’s line children up for mandatory body mass index testing and single individual children out in front of their peers, we have crossed the line. Not quite the legacy Ms. Obama was hoping for I’m sure.