A Modest Proposal
For Preventing Child Obesity in America
Wherever I travel in this Great Democracy of ours, I am struck by the sight of my fellow Americans panting pitifully as they escort their corpulent offspring through the tasks and situations that our daily lives demand. It is impossible, for example, to enter a supermarket without encountering a shapeless mass squashed into the pull-down seat of the shopping cart, reaching its fat arms toward the array of brightly colored candy and fluorescent drinks positioned at its eye-level. Theme parks are clogged with lines of rotund children, two-quart sugary sodas in hand, lining up for cotton candy and hot dogs smothered in melted cheese products and ketchup. What is worse is the inattention of our elected government to the sight of these unfortunate wretches gradually chewing themselves into an early grave. As a loyal citizen, I recognize that I am unable to solve the problem through my own actions but must enlist the support of those of us who remain unburdened by the accretion of tens of pounds of fat around our waists. In short, I offer for your attention a modest proposal to tackle childhood obesity. Let us stifle this awful plague at birth and open a future of exercise, free movement, longevity, and attractiveness for our sorely oppressed youth
Over the past three decades, rates of obesity—that sad condition brought about by the excessive intake of foods such as cake, donuts, French fries and lard—have more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents. Overweight children, already a painful site on our city streets, will soon be the norm. In 2010, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese: sad, uncared-for souls, waddling their way to school without friends or loved-ones. In fact, there are few more important issues in today’s current domestic-political-sphere than child obesity. I have been assured by a very knowing Parisian that America’s image internationally is no longer of rugged individuals building a nation out of the wilderness, but rather of a fat child eating a deep-fried turkey leg at Disney World. I shall, therefore, humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be met with the least objection
Anorexia nervosa, commonly referred to as anorexia, is a disorder that makes people lose more weight than the medical establishment considers healthy for their age and height. However, my Parisian friend assures me that if an obese person becomes anorexic, he or she will not only lose enough weight to no longer be considered fat but also will acquire the sort of emaciated body that today’s taste demands. This benign disease thus may combat the two main problems of child obesity. First—and most important—the international reputation of America will improve, allowing us to take our rightful place once more as the most attractive nation on earth. No longer a nation peopled with the unattractively obese, America will become a land of emaciated children, each with his or her ribs attractively visible beside thin, waif-like arms. Second, our children will have a higher chance of becoming celebrities, the acknowledged goal of our 21st century American Dream. As is obvious from picking up a single issue of US Weekly, 85% of famous women and 75% of famous men are anorexic. By eating less—or still better, by not eating at all—children could transform their future and reenergize our proud nation
Childhood obesity, moreover, causes “heart disease, type two diabetes, stroke, and osteoarthritis. Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for many types of cancer, including cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, gall bladder, thyroid, ovary, cervix, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” In contrast, anorexia simply causes bodily systems to shut down, leaving a corpse that any family would be proud to display to their neighbors. Imagine the glow that parents will feel, standing over the dead body of their children at a wake, when they can finally speak out loud words they never thought they’d hear themselves say: You can pick her up if you would like to. Being beautiful, famous, and healthy is better than being dead, but being attractively dead has to be better than a life of ugliness, troubled with cancer, heart failure, and diabetes
As there are 74.3 million children in the United States, approximately 24 million children are obese. For the first stage of my plan, I suggest taking half of the obese children, about 12 million in total, and placing them in “Anorexic Homes.” An Anorexic Home will consist of cramped living quarters for the children, work out facilities, and reading rooms stacked with copies of Vogue, Harpers Bazar and Cosmopolitan. For breakfast, the children can choose between two red grapes, two green grapes, or one of each. At 12:30, when the children are away at school, lunch will be served. After a full day of rigorous exercises, the children will be fed a hearty meal of three kale chips, and an orange or grapefruit slice. After lunch, the children will take various courses in fame management and lifestyle; dedicated faculty will teach the children how to deal with paparazzi in an appropriate way, how to pose for underwear ads, and how to toy with food in restaurants. Anorexic Homes will serve children ages 6-18 and will be the fastest, most efficient, and most cost effective way to help obese children transition into anorexia
I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this modest proposal, unless it should be urged that “Anorexic Homes” take young children away from their parents. This I freely own. If a child is obese, then more likely than not, his or her parents are obese as well. Without removing children from their parental pantry, they will never be able to beat obesity. Therefore, let no man talk of other expedients: of placing a sugar warning label on soda and other unhealthy drinks, of banning ‘supersize’ drinks in all states, of allowing schools to ban soda, artificial juices, and fried foods, of spending more money on advertisements to eat healthy and exercise appropriately than fast-food chains spend on advertising exactly what is making young children obese
These are troubling times. As many of you know, “the percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010,” and climbed to nearly 33% in 2014. The only fast, cost effective, and smart way to handle this epidemic is create “Anorexic Homes.” If the United States ever wants to be respected in the eyes of the other nations, it cannot be beholden to obesity anymore. I beg of you—ask these obese children if they would rather be obese, slow, sick, and socially embarrassing, or be famous, healthy, and skinny. Would you not rather be thin and dead than live a life surrounded by pounds of internal blubber? In a world where all that matters is physical attractiveness, why devote yourself to a life of ugliness and food?
I have no children less an obese one, and therefore stand nothing to gain from this proposal. I have no motive aside the betterment of the public image of America and the health of young children in America
