Politically speaking

Beware, I am going to talk about political philosophy.

I was sitting in my healthy communities class (something that is required for my Master's) and the professor was talking about ways to fight obesity. After a lengthy discussion about suggestions made by our weekly reading, I offered a couple of suggestions.

First, how about as an incentive for healthy lifestyles choices, we require those whose health issues due to obesity and unhealthy life styles be required to pay much higher premiums for health insurance?  I was intrigued by the reply by a fellow student that it isn't fair to punish the poor because they are caught in a generational cycle of poverty.

Now, here is what I find interesting. First of all, a foreign comedian once joked that he wanted to live in America where the poor people are fat.  I guess this student assumed that I was wanting to just punish poor people because evidently they are the ones struggling with obesity thus proving the comedian right.

The second interesting element of this student's response is the viewpoint that would suggest that allowing people to be responsible for the natural consequences of their choices is considered punishment. Interesting. So if I don't do my homework and do poorly in a class, then if the professor gives me a bad grade, he is actually punishing me and I am not responsible?

What I have found in raising six children that if I keep on protecting them from the consequences of their choices so that I won't "punish" them, and continue to bail them out and take care of them, I have created irresponsible children that won't learn from their mistakes and thus it will become a generational pattern, just as one political party seems to want to do.

My second suggestion. Stop allowing food stamps to be used for junk food and pop. They should be used for only nutritional food items that sustain a healthy lifestyle.