Woke left dodges on NY obesity crisis, like addiction
It’s perhaps New York’s greatest health crisis, but progressives refuse to seriously address it for purely ideological reasons: obesity.
Per the most recent data from the state Department of Health, more than 63% of adults in the Empire State are overweight or obese; obesity rates alone are close to 30%.
The condition’s tied to huge health risks: stroke, diabetes, heart disease, even arthritis.
Nationwide, health expenses tied to obesity run an estimated $173 billion a year.
Lefties shout from the rooftops about far less-serious health issues, like the particulate matter emitted by gas stoves and pizza ovens — but refuse to face reality here.
I.e. the idea that they need to get behind pushing difficult, persistent efforts to develop better eating and exercise habits, even though those are the only real methods to keep weight within a healthy range.
(Witness John Goodman’s miraculous transformation.)
Why?
Over fears of somehow “stigmatizing” the obese.
(Just as they worry over “stigmatizing” addicts, and instead of treatment and tough love proffer them free needles and Narcan to make sure they never get better.)
That’s why the city passed a silly May law forbidding weight discrimination: not to help people get more healthy but (to quote its sponsor, Councilman Shaun Abreu) to change “the culture in how we think about weight.”
It’s why the state health bureaucrats responsible for the survey traffic in the same woke pabulum: “Disparities in obesity underscore the need to address social determinants of health.”
It’s why, instead of making sure kids get plenty of time to run around during the school day, Dems from Michelle Obama on down to Mayor Eric Adams micromanage school lunch with allegedly “healthy” choices (often inedible).
The logic here is doubly perverse: We can’t get people to take charge of their own health, because then we’d have no excuse to busibodily interfere with their lives any longer.
This, when obesity (like crime and addiction) has an outsize impact on black and Latino New Yorkers, as it does on the poor — the groups progressives claim to speak for.
Proving, yet again, that progs are far more devoted to their own ideology and power; “compassion” is just a fig leaf.
