San Antonio has declared war on fat, according to a recent article in the San Antonio Express-News. Aided by $15.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to combat obesity in this restaurant-heavy city that has also been tagged as one of the fattest cities in America, San Antonio is spending our tax dollars with wisdom.
Remember Doritos! Remember Dr. Pepper! Remember the Alamo!
First up is the elimination of sugary and fatty confections and beverages in the city’s 250 beverage vending machines and 75 snack dispensers. Instead, San Antonio residents will get to choose from a delicious smorgasbord of waters and diet drinks. Yummy! But that’s not all! Bags of chips will have to be less than 1.5 ounces.
Fortunately for city employees, the article notes, they won’t be banned from consuming fatty foods and drinks at work. But one wonders how far off that ban is, and when government will begin regulating a citizen’s intake of fatty foods and drinks. It’s a Utopian future of organic whole grain rice cakes harvested locally by illegal immigrants, washed down with government-approved water.
“I asked the staff to remove the high-calorie soda drinks from our vending machines,” [City Manager Sheryl] Sculley said. “I’m a fitness person, and I care about our employees, and I want them to be healthy. And I think this is a very small gesture.”
I have a small gesture in mind as well. It involves the strategic deployment of the middle digit of my hand in the general direction of City Manager Sheryl Sculley and the other nanny ninny busybodies who want to confiscate my sugar, fat and calories. You can have my Doritos and Dr. Pepper when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
It is quit interesting that the City Manager can determine what goes into a vending machine but cannot enforce the same regulations on city own buildings. Case in point, any city own building that has a vending machine has to be 100% healthy, but that same building no matter if there is a cafeteria , outside vendor, or even a restaurant not mandate to follow these guild line. So how imperative is this to any average adult to make there own decision on what they eat. Along with single out the vending company that is mandate to have there, hands tied for one individual personal objective. In addition, has this truly help. I would think $15.6 million stimulus has helped the bottom line for the city’s operating budget. To bad that none of that stimulus money has help reduce San Antonio obesity problem. However, maybe the stimulus has help stimulate a certain person that makes decision in this city.