I meant to post this under health. Sorry.

There are quite a few things we should start doing:

1.) Childhood Obesity: In the UK the government is starting to take kids away from their homes if they are obese.  They see that as childhood neglect.  In the states our system wouldn’t be able to handle that…but we could take the extreme cases.  But here is a quick help: Take the drink machines and vending machines back out of the schools. 
2.) Healthcare and Insurance: I believe that people who are overweight should pay more for insurance or…people that have gym memberships should be discounted on their health insurance. 
3.) There are people that are receiving disability because they are too overweight.  How ridiculous.  Send them to a doctor and put them on a weight loss plan.  If they don’t succeed…then take away their check Simple as that…

...These are just a few quick ideas.

Mr Pierce,
Taking kids away from families and handing the responsibility to government is just plain wrong!  How can government with its seemingly endless series of failures succeed in raising an obese child?  Government welfare is currently a major contributor to sedentary lifestyles that are at the root of juvenile obesity.

How about making it mandatory for kids to be dropped off and picked up from school at least a mile from the school?  The preponderance of students will be fine and the lard asses will bitch, but they’ll make it.  Sure there will be exceptions, but let the track coach be the approval authority.
Just an idea.

I must agree with you Mr. Pierce. I’m sorry but I personally think there is no reason for anyone to become obese..especially at a young age. At certain ages the parents should be reasonable because there the ones feeding the children. This is just my personal option.

**opinion sorry.

We must eat more home cooked meals.  There are plenty of cookbooks for fast, healthy, home cooked meals.

Fast food should be occasional indulgences, not constituting the majority of our daily caloric intake.  The sadistic side of me would love to see a fast food tax—an additional sales tax on restaurants whose menus have high daily percentages of saturated fat, sugar, and salt.  That will never happen, but when this cheap convenience food is no longer cheap, our dietary patterns will change.

I also wonder what behavioral changes our kids will undertake if we reduce their intake to sugary and high sodium foods.  We might even reduce diagnoses for ADHD as well as improve our paltry educational standing nationally.

I’m in my mid-30s, so I remember home economics classes that taught us how to cook and showed us basic nutritional information—portions, balance, variety and so on. 

With these classes long gone here (and nationally), we are developing a generation who doesn’t know how to cook and whose parents don’t cook either.

My guess is that obesity will probably get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.

How about worry about your own weight, and leave other people alone?
I don’t like smoking - so I don’t smoke. I dont want to be obese, so I dont overeat.
If my neightbor wants to polish off a carton of marlboros and a bucket of chicken - its his life.
Why do we have to do anything about it?

I don’t need to worry about my own weight because My weight is fine. And when it comes to “leaving people alone” I haven’t said anything to anybody.And no one said anything about doing anything about it. Suggestions are all we made and that offends you then you don’t have to read it! You may not think obesity is a problem but maybe others do so.

Take away their playstations, Wii’s and TV’s except maybe an hour a day. Make them look for something to do outdoors and get more involved in recreational activities.

Again - why do we as a people have to worry about what OTHER people do? Is obesity a problem overall? Yes. Should we as a state or a city be wasting our time thinking about it? No.

Let the fat people worry about being fat. If an individual wants to do something about their OWN weight, let them do it. If they dont - its none of our concern.

This isn’t like smoking, we are not being affected by secondhand overeating. I’m not going to gain a pound because the guy next to me at outback eats two “chocolate thunders from down under”.

This isn’t even like drinking - How many people get killed because some fat dude spent too much time at the buffet, then tried to drive home stuffed? I doubt its many.

So, encourage your own family to get or stay healthy, worry about your own kids helath. Everyone else? Screw ‘em. It makes it that much easier for your kids to win the track meet, when all the other porkers cant make it off the starting block without having a hot dog first.

It’s not your problem until insurance rates begin going up across the board due to the high cost of avoidable obesity-related illnesses.

Obese people do indeed affect us.
example: I am a small people, not because I choose to be, I’m just small, I wear small clothes but lately ever small piece of clothing I have seen are really big. Clothing companies are making small clothes bigger these days because most people in the US are obese. Don’t believe me start asking questions.
This affects me and everyone else that needs small clothing. So as you can clearly see obese people do affect us.

Just wondering why your getting so defensive about this issue. I mean if your obese and feel threatened you don’t have to read this and if you just don’t want to hear about it then again you still don’t have to read it.

Yall, guess, what, if it was not for us “fat” people, then no one would admire yall skinny asses!!!

Being fat is NOT A CHOICE in many cases. Children should be outside, take out the snack machines in school and better school lunches, for myself. I almost died a few years ago trying to make myself no “fat” to “fit in” in society because of the “fat people are gross” fat people are lazy etc et etc   Skinny people have health problems to.