Free - to eat a Quarter Pounder with cheese

I love this great opinion piece by Kerry J. Byrne, a food and drink writer of the Boston Herald.

The government is not going to get a nation of anorexics, vegans, or perfectly proportioned people any time soon - because the very first attempt to regulate eating will make the American Revolution look like a shoving match.  No nation but in America can someone select what they want to eat, how much they want to eat, and at what price point they want to pay for what they eat.  We don't follow the anorexic or

I like going to b. good, which is burger joint that sells much healthier burgers and so forth.  A full meal with fries and a shake costs about $12 - and often I can afford it.  However, I also like to go to Burger King for a bacon double cheeseburger for half of that cost.  I can either have a yogurt parfait at Au Bon Pain, a yogurt shake at b. good, or ice cream at Ben & Jerry's (or a local joint).

Now, if you have $3 and you can feed yourself pretty well on that, you're lucky.  It might be true that we have healthy food deserts (but you also notice there are plenty of lottery and liquor oases), but if there is food and it sates us until the next meal, then someone's telling a big fat lie.  Moreover, if you can buy that meal off the dollar menu at Wendy's and work all 800 calories off in a day, bless you.  No one's forcing a gun to your head to do jumping jacks and mountain climbers - just move around and keep active.

How about this neat idea from a mother with three children - you can still have junk food, but you gotta work for it.  If there's a McDonald's three miles away, the Happy Meal is yours if want to walk for it.  Or if you want to go to Sonic, we take the dog too and give it a run.  I think that's a marvelous idea - work for your junk food, make it slightly more difficult to access (no knee-jerk food fascism such as bake sale bans and getting into a lathering snit over 2800 calories shakes - unless you've had major dental work and can't eat solid foods), and get some exercise in the bargain - it'll make you at least hungrier for it!

Byrne is certainly right about one thing - we aren't active enough.  I'm not and I'm free to admit it - I work 8-9 hours a day at a desk, and the last thought on my mind on the way to work or on the way home on the bus is exercise.  I could get a bicycle, but I like to ride with my huge noggin al fresco - no helmet.  When we aren't active, even if we're on a strict macrobiotic hypervegan diet, we gain weight.  The worst thing we can do is nag people to death to lose the weight, but given an appropriate, non-obnoxious incentive to do so, and people will flock to it.

Take out the fear of getting injured or being a victim to violent and non-violent crimes, and all those poor people who are overweight will be healthier.  It'll certainly knock down the Potemkin food deserts and the fun out of marching lockstep in the streets, extolling the virtues of Puritanism gone amok.