So Mississippi is a state filthy with fat people. Generally, your poorer states are your fatter states because you can buy tasty shit by the bucket load on the cheap thanks to corporate America. Mississippi pretty much is the widescreen picture evidence of this: it's got the highest poverty rate, the lowest income, and the highest rate of obesity (or, according to another survey, nearly the highest). The legislature there, seeing that the mighty Jewish mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, was trying to limit the amount of sugary drinks people could have to a mere pint at a time, decided that no way, no how were they gonna let their localities do the same. In fact, the legislature, House and Senate, overwhelmingly voted to ban any "political subdivision" not the state (or federal government) from enacting any regulation on its own. They even nicknamed it the "Anti-Bloomberg Law."
A political subdivision, in case you wondered, is "any county, municipality, town, district, instrumentality of the state, public corporation, body corporate, commission, board, agency, authority, public body, politic or other public entity responsible for governmental activities in geographic areas smaller than that of the state." The bill says that such subdivisions can do jack shit about anything to do with food, whether it's banning toys at McDonald's or requiring restaurants to post the calories of its food. One of the bill's sections says, "Where food service operations are permitted to operate, [no political subdivision shall] ban, prohibit, or otherwise restrict a food service operation based upon the existence or nonexistence of food-based health disparities as recognized by the department of health, the institute of health, or the centers for disease control."
So, like, for instance, the Harrison County School District, which serves the Gulfport area, says on its website, "Based on the Obesity Epidemic in our country, we are gearing up on healthy choices in the school cafeterias. We will be offering more fruit/vegetable choices and less fried foods. Many foods that have been fried in the past will now be baked." Programs such as this one, as well as nutrition education, have actually lowered the rate of obesity among teenagers in Mississippi, 18% to 16% from 2009 to 2011.
"Fuck you, fatty-hating mini-Bloombergs," the legislation says. "Dip that shit in lard and fry it up. How dare you declare there's an obesity epidemic? One-third of the citizens of Mississippi are 30 pounds or more overweight. You want the kids to think they're better 'n their parents? You thin 'em out, they might realize they can do more with their lives than try to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom before shitting themselves."
What paragon of health decided that Mississippians don't need the nanny state looking after them? The principle author of the bill is Senator Tony Smith. He's this svelte dreamboat:
Smith, a Republican, represents - oh, hey, look, Harrison County. He believes that "the push for healthier food choices in schools might not be doing much to promote better eating." And he is unafraid of presenting us with the horrors that await us should the state not halt the insanity that might reign if localities went unchecked: "Can you imagine if all of a sudden one of the cities said you can't have buffets, that's killing the obesity fight. So then they go in and ban the buffet." No one is going to tell Tony Smith that he is not allowed to eat all he can (and, from that picture up there, apparently no one has). By the way, Smith's district also has a lot of casinos, which feed the starving gamblers with, you know, buffets.
Mississippi has some of the highest rates of diabetes and heart disease, along with one of the lowest life expectancies, in the United States. When that's the case you try to do something to help people, as some in Mississippi have. But God help the community that wants food nutrition information made available. And may Christ have mercy on the soul of anyone who wants to stop the gravy train at Country Buffet.
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