Body Mass Insects

By now you've heard: the government is interested in your BMI. (no not that bicycle on the back porch -- your BMI is your body mass index) Via CNS News:

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records–that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year–must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.

The obesity-rating regulation states that every American’s electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”

The law also requires that these electronic health records be available–with appropriate security measures–on a national exchange.

Will they use it to ration health care? Will chubby people (some of my favorite people) and smokers be made to jump through hoops because they're double-plus unfit?

Whatever the reason for wanting the individual number, I reject it. Government health advisers don't need to be calling on the phone, doctors don't need to be forced into counseling sessions, hoops shouldn't need to be jumped through.

And whose idea was it to put the First Lady in charge of childhood obesity? Not to put too fine a point on it, well, you can't put too fine a point on it, it's round from whatever angle you approach it, but Mrs. Obama is... she's... well, put it this way: she's not in danger of floating away. She can't help it, it's genetics. And she'll never, nor should she, look like a fashion model walking away from you. It's the same genetics that dictate that her husband will always be a skinny rail.

Sadly, there is an area in the liberal brain that wants to believe there is a perfect condition, and that we all must be striving towards it. It's bad enough that the constantly air-conditioned elite are trying to decide what temperature the earth should be; we can't afford a skinny president telling us how much we should weigh.

Out of my pantry, you.