American slender: when did freedom become just another word for 10 pounds left to lose?

• Author: Gillespie, Nick>

"We're just too darn fat, ladies and gentleman, and we're going to do something about it," proclaimed the formerly plus-sized, multiple-chinned Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson last spring while announcing a new government ad campaign designed to help citizens shape up. (Thompson has shed an undisclosed number of pounds while on a public diet.)

"We've got so many people who are fat," declared the slender Michigan governor--and former beauty queen--Jennifer Granholm at the National Governors Association meeting in March. "And that is really contributing significantly to our health care costs."

Along with more than a dozen of her peers, Granholm strapped on a pedometer to see who walked the farthest during a 16-week period. Other gubernatorial fat fighters include South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (undertaking a 300-mile bike trek), Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (publicly forswearing Snickers), and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (sponsoring a 10-kilometer walk/fun run).

Thus the United States turns from nation building abroad to nation bodybuilding at home. In a world beset by terrorism, poverty, and malnutrition, who could have imagined that being fat would become the subject not simply of the derision and scorn it has long inspired but a political topic every bit as heartburn-inducing as a Tabasco-flavored Slim Jim?

If history is any guide, it's safe to assume that a hot topic of political discussion will quickly transform into a hot topic of legislation, ranging from Twinkie taxes to mandatory high school exit exams administered by the President's Council on Physical Fitness (which one assumes is now part of the Department of Homeland Security). Can the federal Leave No Chubby Child Behind Act be far away in a country in which 15 percent of kids are officially considered "overweight"? The corresponding figure for adults is about 65 percent, which simply pours more fat on this particular political fire.

If being overweight contributes "significantly to our health care costs," the best way to reduce our dangerous dependency on imported stretch fabrics is to make individuals internalize those costs the same way they scarf down the Big Macs and (formerly) supersized fries. That means reducing the publicly funded elements of health...