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Upper class drama becomes public policy

“Trying to make fat people thin is based on the assumption that we can do something that we actually cannot do.”

”Child obesity is a classic moral panic,” Campos said. “The childhood obesity ... health crisis ... evidence for that is essentially nonexistent. I really do think that what you are looking at here is a sociological phenomenon where people like Michelle Obama,” who recently spoke out against childhood obesity,” and Bloomberg are playing out their own dramas. Michelle Obama is obsessed with her weight, and obsessed with the weight of her daughters. It’s upsetting that that kind of upper class drama gets put into public policy with no filter at all.”

Bloomberg is also playing out an upper-class drama, argues Campos, one that has to do with his less wealthy antecedents. “Bloomberg probably believes he’s a gazillionaire because he can deny himself donuts, and that the reason poor people aren’t is because they can’t.

“Especially in NY, or in Manhattan, thinness is associated with status. People value it for that reason. And they forgot that it’s another form of conspicuous consumption, and it gets turned into an extremely important and desirable public health goal.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.c.../#ixzz0oHv4E0MG

Moral Panic

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.[1] According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests."[2] Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as "moral entrepreneurs", while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils."

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Moral_panic