Congressman Ron Kind (D-Wis.) introduced a bill called the "Healthy Choices Act." Its aim is to introduce a wide variety of new programs and regulations to incentivize parents and kids to physical fitness. I've not gotten into the gruesome details of this nanny-statism but it contains a scary new mandate that all states must keep track of every single child's body mass index (BMI).
To say nothing of the scary idea of collecting weight data on every single American child, this is further entrenching the BMI into the government's standards of health. The BMI is an incredibly imperfect measurement that has varied over time and, by the government's definition, classifies the longest-living people as those who are overweight.
Are we really going to let the government go ahead massive new information-gathering scheme in a misguided attempt to "incentivize" people to make healthier choices? I miss the days when so-called "progressives" didn't trust the government to gather massive amounts of data on its citizenry (the days of George W. Bush). Alas, if it's in the pursuit of "health care" instead of national security, they're all for it.
And what happens when, after gathering every piece of information they can, the so-called "nudge" policies turn to "shove"?
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