MeMe Responds

Radley Balko | May 27, 2007

MeMe Roth has responded via email to my post last week . She says she stands by her comments "100 percent." I, likewise, stand 100 percent behind my opinion of MeMe Roth. I'm on vacation this week, so I really don't have time to give her ridiculous email the thrashing it deserves. But I thought y'all would get a kick out of it.

Jacob Sullum's reason cover story on the obesity panic here. My own work on obesity here and here. Here's MeMe's email:

Hello Radley, I'd like you and your Reason Hit & Run readers to know
that I 100% stand behind the statements I have made. One problem in
this country when it comes to obesity is we're too p.c. to say
overweight is overweight. Sure, it's the majority...Sure, it's the
statistical norm, but that doesn't make being overweight normal. It
becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation
have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their
children. What portion of your finances have you set aside to pay for
the $100 Billion annual healthcare price tag that comes with
America's obesity crisis? U.S. Comptroller General David Walker says
our healthcare costs have us on course to bankrupt the country by 2040.

Truman said it. "No nation is more prosperous than the health of its
children..." Our children are not healthy.

For the record... I was invited onto news shows to discuss child
obesity and the American Idol show. I have only ever used the words
"tragedy" or "nightmare" to describe America's child obesity
epidemic, not a person, and not a performer on American Idol. Nor
have I used the word "obese" to describe Jordin Sparks. Nor have I
said her size should prevent her from winning. I stand 100% behind
only the statements I made, nothing scripted to introduce any interview.

National Action Against Obesity's mandate is to 1) Rid schools of
Junk Food; 2) Eliminate "Fake Food" from the food supply that
contributes to obesity and disease; 3) Eradicate Secondhand Obesity--
obesity handed down from one generation to the next...or across the
culture; Plus) Promote exercise across all ages.

I have said and will continue to say that Jordin Sparks is an amazing
talent and effervescent personality. Her extra weight is a reflection
of today's society and a culture where many of our children have
compromised health due to unhealthful food choices and inactivity.
What seems in comparison to morbid obesity to be "just a little extra
weight" does indeed increase our children's odds significantly for
diabetes, heart disease, etc...and even more so if someone is Latino,
African American, Asian or Native American. We now are seeing high
blood pressure, high cholesterol, and of course, type II diabetes, in
our children at rates like never before.

The context of the comment about Jordin's imminent weight loss was
aimed at unhealthful Hollywood handlers.

Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

|5.27.07 @ 10:27AM|#

One problem it this country when it comes to obesity is we're too p.c. to say
overweight is overweight.

I think a quick glance at the magazines near the checkout in a grocery will refute this claim.

Sandy|5.27.07 @ 10:27AM|#

What portion of your finances have you set aside to pay for the $100 Billion annual healthcare price tag that comes with America's obesity crisis?

Answer: $331 per person per year. For someone making $20K a year, that's 1.7%.

That took me about 30 seconds to figure out. I guess I'm like a genius or something, or perhaps really bad at the Rhetorical Scare Question game.

Maybe MeMe would be better at math if she had a hamburger.

|5.27.07 @ 10:34AM|#

Sure, it's the statistical norm, but that doesn't make being overweight normal.

I think that just about says it all.

Grotius|5.27.07 @ 10:40AM|#

It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their
children.

How exactly is it a national security issue?

|5.27.07 @ 10:42AM|#

How does she measure obesity? BMI? If yes, then she is a member of the ignorant people of the world council.

|5.27.07 @ 10:44AM|#

You obnoxious Meme, people like you never get it. People like you who make living out of using your frgging loud mouth always bring discomfort in people's lives. What kind of common sense allows you to say the girl shouldn't win American Idol just because she is little healthier than you? I fear from people like you more than I fear Bin Laden.

|5.27.07 @ 10:46AM|#

It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their
children.

How exactly is it a national security issue?

I was wondering the same thing.

Does this mean Krispy Kreme is like a terrorist cell?

|5.27.07 @ 10:51AM|#

I'll trade an infinite number of MeSo's for one old-fashioned feminist who knows that it's nobody else's fucking business how much she weighs.

|5.27.07 @ 10:54AM|#

"It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their
children.

How exactly is it a national security issue?"
What better justification for government intrusion on our lives? Who cares if it makes sense in the least? Also- this $100 pricetag for healthcare is only a national crisis because we continue to insist on having socialized medicine.

Guy Montag|5.27.07 @ 11:16AM|#

Actually, being "overweight" is "normal" if enough people are over their ideal weight. It might not be healthy, but it would still be "normal".

That nonsense about it being an national security issue is just nuts.

|5.27.07 @ 11:20AM|#

Well, you know, cause if we don't stop the national security threat from junk food, we'll have more explosive attacks like this one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-274981837129821058

Cesar|5.27.07 @ 11:40AM|#

National security? So they hate us for our trans-fats?

|5.27.07 @ 11:49AM|#

It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves

They hate us for our fat.

Nor have I said her size should prevent her from winning.

I'm not going to further waste my time by watching the video again, but I'm under the impression that she said exactly that.

|5.27.07 @ 12:09PM|#

Cavuto put the words in her mouth. She never denied holding that position. He also gave her every chance to say it herself. She never took the bait.

What's this crap about not having a future in the biz because of her weight? Fat girls can fucking sing!

|5.27.07 @ 12:13PM|#

Why does the Burger King hate America?

|5.27.07 @ 12:15PM|#

It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their
children.

She means that we need to reduce our dependance on foreign trans-fats and increase research on domestic, renewable cholesterol sources.

|5.27.07 @ 12:16PM|#

I'll trade an infinite number of MeSo's for one old-fashioned feminist who knows that it's nobody else's fucking business how much she weighs.

I can't decide what's worse -- the old-fashioned feminists who tried to take away my porn or the MeMes who want to take away my junk food.

Jackson Kuhl|5.27.07 @ 12:19PM|#

How exactly is it a national security issue?

Because we will all need to run fast during the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

LoneWackjob|5.27.07 @ 1:00PM|#

Meme is right about the threat to NationalSecurity posed by TransFats. Most TransFats come from ForeignFood, particularly from Mexico. The more we eat at Chipotle and Qdoba, the more the MexicanGovernment gets us fat in order to ConquerUs. Don't let FelipeCalderon control YourDiet.

|5.27.07 @ 1:09PM|#

The next world war will be won by sedentary blobs with huge brains who tell other sedentary blobs what buttons to push and where to direct their Hover-Vees.

Franklin Harris|5.27.07 @ 1:12PM|#

Does this mean Krispy Kreme is like a terrorist cell?

Wow. Maybe I really am with the terrorists!

John|5.27.07 @ 1:20PM|#

Radley,

When you do get back from vacation please dish out that thrashing.

This woman is a menace to civil society.

M|5.27.07 @ 1:57PM|#

I confess I wasn't too disturbed by the original video of a woman voicing her opinion and apparently meaning well, although admittedly not expressing herself in a way, nor in a forum, I would choose. That's because I was taught not to express disapproval of other people's appearances unless asked, and then to offer it privately and tactfully, and I've seen no reason to modify that feature of my upbringing.

So I wondered, reading the comments on the other thread, whether the strong reactions showed a bit of paranoia, in that anyone disapproving of anything is deemd to equate to a threat of governmental regulation, repression, tyranny. After all, in her crtique, the lady spoke of no laws to enforce her preference.

But now that I've read her determination that "It becomes an issue of national security when two-thirds of our nation have inflicted illness onto themselves...not to mention their children," I worry.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say all her medico-esthetic and psychological judgments were based on fact. That is, let's pretend her words would effectively inform and correct someone else's foolish choices, assuming they are indeed foolish. That seems like a kind, charitable gesture... until we read her motive, composed at leisure, that her project is not to remove an impediment to her young neighbor's individual happiness, but aims at ensuring that her neighbor will make a better soldier. That is, for MeMe, the individual exists and functions for the sake of the nation.

To which, as the kids used to say, please gag me with a spoon.

|5.27.07 @ 1:59PM|#

Eradicate Secondhand Obesity--
obesity handed down from one generation to the next

I'd settle for eliminating public health proposals based upon Lamarckism.

|5.27.07 @ 2:18PM|#

Anyone that uses the word "epidemic" to describe a health situation involving a non-communicable disease deserves the title of Village Idiot™.

Specifically, when you use "epidemic" to describe the results of indiviual choice to mandate state interference in private health matters that harms no one but themselves, you earn the privilege to be:

beaten at regular intervals
laughed at
publicly ridiculed and belittled
banished
ignored

In no particular order.

Cesar|5.27.07 @ 2:20PM|#

Anyone that uses the word "epidemic" to describe a health situation involving a non-communicable disease deserves the title of Village Idiot™.

JW-

My rule of thumb is to immediately stop listening to anyone who a) uses the word "epidemic" unless its used to describe something like, say, smallpox, and b) when The Children are mentioned.

GILMORE|5.27.07 @ 2:27PM|#

Can we get her address and mail her a copy of this? Maybe it will open her mind.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743464710/reasonmagazineA/

It had that effect on me. You go head girl.

|5.27.07 @ 2:28PM|#

For the record... I was invited onto news shows to discuss child
obesity and the American Idol show.

Oh, never mind then.

Calm down folks, nothing to see here. Her name was obviously selected from a random sampling of the US Census. It could have been any of us up there on the telly rattling off talking points from the Stick Figure Foundation.

I mean, it's not like she is engaged in self-aggrandizing PR stunts designed solely to gain her notoriety, raise her public profile and line her wallet. Nothing of the sort. She's doing this solely as a public service in the spirit of noble sacrifice for your country.

GILMORE|5.27.07 @ 2:30PM|#

Eradicate Secondhand Obesity--
obesity handed down from one generation to the next

Why not just herd the fatties into concentration camps, castrate them, suck out their fat, use it as an alternative fuel source. It will help bring about energy independence, and free our country from having to support generations of their fat offspring. MeMe is on to something here.

Jim Murphy|5.27.07 @ 2:47PM|#

What's this crap about not having a future in the biz because of her weight? Fat girls can fucking sing!

Mama Cass...Aretha Franklin...Ella Fitzgerald.....sure hate to follow in those footsteps. Too bad MeMe wasn't around then to inform them they had no future in the music business...

|5.27.07 @ 3:06PM|#

Hey, It's your body do what you want with/to it. That said, I believe the real issue confronting western civilization is "How can we stop fat girls from wearing mini-skirts?"

Any sugggestions would be greatly appreciated.

edna|5.27.07 @ 3:14PM|#

"until we read her motive, composed at leisure, that her project is not to remove an impediment to her young neighbor's individual happiness, but aims at ensuring that her neighbor will make a better soldier."

no, i read her motive, pure and simple, as the promotion and aggrandizement (with consequent cash flow) of meme.

|5.27.07 @ 3:18PM|#

Does this mean Krispy Kreme is like a terrorist cell?

Why yes, yes it does. That's why you see all the cops there. They say it's for the doughnuts, but it's really surveillance.

|5.27.07 @ 3:22PM|#

Her comments about Jordin are obnoxious, but what I'd really like to see her defend is the YMCA stunt.

|5.27.07 @ 3:30PM|#

I wonder how much money I've provided to the state to fund Public Health programs through the taxes taken from the thousands of meals I've bought at restaurants.

I have no idea, but I bet it's a lot. I'll be expecting to hear a "thank you" from MeMe.

Jennifer|5.27.07 @ 3:40PM|#

It is a national security issue because the World Trade Center towers wouldn't have fallen down if the people inside them weren't so fat.

MM|5.27.07 @ 3:42PM|#

How exactly is it a national security issue?

Mexicans are clearly willing to do everything at 80% the weight of an American.

|5.27.07 @ 3:58PM|#

"secondhand obesity"

Hadn't seen that one. If it goes the way of "secondhand smoking", repeated often enough, it will soon become a firmly embedded fact without facts brhind it. Sigh...

|5.27.07 @ 4:07PM|#

I have no problem with MeMe Roth's standards of beauty. As someone who was quite partial to the heroin chic look, I endorse them full heartedly. Where MeMe errs, is in her belief that proper standards for weight and beauty should be enforced at gunpoint. That's wrong from both a libertarian and practial standpoint. Fitting in to a size 0 dress should be the reward resulting from hard work and commitment, not government do gooders. By intoducing the coercive hand of government cheapen the accomplishment. It's the same thing as religion. Who is more pious? The person who accepts God under threat of being burned at the stake, or the man who commits of his own free will?

She's also wrong about Jordan Sparks. The days of Mamma Cass may be gone forever, but black women can still get away with being fat and having successful music careers. I don't know if that's a function of some sort of racism or what, but that's the way it is.

brec|5.27.07 @ 4:27PM|#

I think a quick glance at the magazines near the checkout in a grocery will refute this claim.

Recently while in a checkout line I idly summed the weight losses on the magazine covers: 431 pounds.

|5.27.07 @ 4:48PM|#

"How can we stop fat girls from wearing mini-skirts?"

A little red wine, dim lights, and some 80s alternative music.

|5.27.07 @ 4:53PM|#

One problem in
this country when it comes to obesity is we're too p.c. to say
overweight is overweight.

And just how are things in Absurdistan this time of year?

Seriously, what fucking planet is this twit from? It's now PC to say that normal weight is overweight. It's now perfectly acceptable to say that if you are overweight, you are disturbed enough to require help against your will. It's the Orwell Diet: high in hectoring and coersion, low on trans-fats and carbs.

The sad part is that she truly belives she's being courageous in saying the things she says, and not the craven and nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying publicity whore that she truly is.

Feh, she's a cable news troll. 'Nuf said.

Our children are not healthy.

Assuming this woman is not an elaborate put-on I will offer the same comment that I had about the idiot in Maine on seatbelts and smoking. MeMe (née Narcissus) and I have not fucked, therefore there are no our children to discuss. As for my and my children's healthcare expenses, I am fully insured but thanks for the concern. Her incorrect use of words like epidemic and national security only confirms that she has nothing intelligent to say.

After all, in her critique, the lady spoke of no laws to enforce her preference.

I never read the original article, but didn't she deliberately impede other's access to ice cream and create an unwanted nuisance? Apparently property rights mean very little to her, I see no reason why she be given any deference?

|5.27.07 @ 5:01PM|#

Hey, It's your body do what you want with/to it. That said, I believe the real issue confronting western civilization is "How can we stop fat girls from wearing mini-skirts?"

You're as bad as the guys who can't just peek at cleavage and then look away. Why encourage women to cover up? I don't make fun of the skinny ones. I have only so many good years left. Let's all try to make them as enjoyable as possible, shall we?

Fluffy|5.27.07 @ 5:16PM|#

With regard to her "national security" concerns, I had always read that gym classes in public education date from just after the First World War, when the War Department complained about the truly shoddy condition of the recruits it had to work with. It seems funny now that a nation of farm boys and manual laborers could have produced an army that was in lousy physical condition, but apparently it did. Physical education to improve the general condition of potential future draftees was considered critical to future national security.

If MeMe has a similar concern today, I think it's a little misplaced. I doubt we're going to be fighting any continental-scale wars requiring that hundreds of thousands of chubby, junk-food-eating draftees somehow be turned into decent infantry.

Since I do not like the argument from so-called "social" medical costs [they don't have to be social, you know - all we have to do is stop paying them], I can't really think of any reason to lament the increase in obesity in the United States other than the fact that fat people are ugly to look at. And while that is a concern, I don't think it rises to a level where it requires any social or political activism by the likes of MeMe.

|5.27.07 @ 5:19PM|#

Come to think of it, my first reaction to seeing her bit on the tv was "I know some 'fat' Latino girls who would love to have 5 minutes alone with this girl to show her just how out of shape they are".

Which, in retrospect, is a pretty unkind thought.

|5.27.07 @ 6:15PM|#

I doubt we're going to be fighting any continental-scale wars requiring that hundreds of thousands of chubby, junk-food-eating draftees somehow be turned into decent infantry.

Um... You do know who's President, right?

|5.27.07 @ 6:40PM|#

Ms. Roth has obviously failed to realize that, in times of national crisis when necessary services have failed, we fat people can survive for weeks or even months on our stored energy. Thin folks will collapse and die shortly after the supermarkets are cleaned out.

LarryA|5.27.07 @ 7:27PM|#

Meme is the true threat to national security. When we run out of fat contraltos, nothing will ever be over.

|5.27.07 @ 7:54PM|#

"How can we stop fat girls from wearing mini-skirts?"

Mail them videotapes of themselves dancing. Same goes for fat guys wearing t-shirts that don't cover their gut.

|5.27.07 @ 8:04PM|#

|5.27.07 @ 8:49PM|#

jh: A quibble. The price of sugar (sucrose) isn't depressed by government programs, it is propped up. High Fructose Corn Syrup, on the other hand....

As for this...

....we fat people can survive for weeks or even months on our stored energy. - Your Good Buddy Johnny Clarke

...I have long joked that, descended as I am from survivors of An Gorta Mór, the great Irish famine, I am genetically predisposed to more efficiently convert food into storage than my ancestors' naturally thin neighbors. Those skinny fellows died off faster, and had a less numerous posterity, poor devils.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

Kevin

|5.27.07 @ 9:02PM|#

I'm sure I can deadlift more than miss Roth. I bet I couldn't if I was the walking skeleton she seems to think I should be.

|5.27.07 @ 10:10PM|#

Only statists like MeMe think problems caused, at least in part, by government meddling can be fixed by more government meddling. You want to cut back on obesity, repeal the government farm programs that dump cheap, subsidized sugar and starch on the marketplace. If you want to end the "social costs" imposed on Medicare and Medicaid by fat people, terminate those programs. At the risk of sounding callous, if the government statisticans are right that the poorest Americans are on average the most obese, then why is one branch of government paying for food stamps to subsidize what another branch of government considers unhealthy behavior? And don't even get me started on tobacco subsidies.

Even if the problem was caused by goverment intervention (and I suspect that the impact really isn't that much) and even if she isn't avocating goverment intervention (and I suspect she never will; do you ever see Ann Coulter giving solutions? The money is in preaching to the angry choir enough so that they'll buy her books and pissing off the other side enough so they'lll buy her books), the problem lies in the fact that she is a harpy insulting the people America for a problem that they don't really have.

I mean, wouldn't you'd be pissed if I got on Fox and spouted that there is a sodomite problem in America, with 80% of the people sodmising?

|5.27.07 @ 10:18PM|#

Was this email edited down, or does Roth not understand how to use ellipses?

|5.27.07 @ 10:20PM|#

I...thought...she used...them...just fine.

|5.27.07 @ 10:29PM|#

I see that MeMe is short for Meredith. Wouldn't "Merde" be a better nickname for that?

potomos|5.27.07 @ 10:51PM|#

The one thing that I've yet to hear in the same dialog is questioning whether this "obesity epidemic" is more about vanity and appearance and less about health.

As far as Moonbeam MeMe and her assertion that this is some sort of national security issue, I wouldn't mind a whiff or two of those vapors she seems to ingesting. Dismissing the absurdity of how obese people make us unsafe for a moment, what other reason could there possibly be for the uber-nannies and their encroachment into the private lives of the others?

To the MeMes and others out there - stop trying to save me from myself!

|5.27.07 @ 10:52PM|#

Doctor Duck,

I've never studied French, but wouldn't "Tete de Merde" be more appropriate?

-jcr

|5.27.07 @ 11:57PM|#

"Jonathan

... the problem lies in the fact that she is a harpy insulting the people America for a problem that they don't really have.

I mean, wouldn't you'd be pissed if I got on Fox and spouted that there is a sodomite problem in America, with 80% of the people sodmising?"

80%? Where'd you get that number? Or is that just a hypothetical? Cause nobody I knows lies about sex when a researcher asks them probing questions (if you'll pardon the pun).

|5.28.07 @ 12:06AM|#

I picked the number at random.

|5.28.07 @ 12:12AM|#

I pulled it out of my ass, so to speak.

|5.28.07 @ 3:30AM|#

Wasn't it only a few years ago that mainstream PC opinion was that our culture was creating an epidemic of emaciated anorexic women? The fact that it transformed so quickly into an obesity scare seems to prove that both are being blown way out of proportion.

And for some reason, MeMe and the National Action Against Obesity reminds me of Arrested Development's Lindsay Bluth and HOOP.

|5.28.07 @ 9:44AM|#

Easy way to MeMe's utopia: Free, easily available, high-quality amphetamines for everyone! We'll all be ready to fight in the next big war when we're zooming around, plus the weight loss bonus and I think we've got ourselves a winning position.

Guy Montag|5.28.07 @ 9:52AM|#

Perhaps she will uncover the secret soylent diesel plot, just like the way Rosie uncovered the WT7 demolition plot. Poor people can't be getting fat on their own you know!

|5.28.07 @ 12:43PM|#

"How can we stop fat girls from wearing mini-skirts?"

Sometimes you've gotta tug a little.

|5.28.07 @ 1:09PM|#

While everybody's ready to string up meme, I'm still stunned by the increasing obesity in the US. After a couple of years overseas, I returned to find an unbelievable number of grossly obese Wal-mart shoppers cruising the aisles in the store provided electric carts, not because they have any affirmaties unless you count the huge asses they are dragging around.

My guess is that they will all tell you that they are fat because of their genetics, waaaaaaah. A better indicator of the source of their hugeness would be to simply stand at a checkout and see the kind of crap they are feeding themselves and their children.

I'm not calling for any government intervention but there is a disturbing trend (avoided that horrible word "epidemic") that is going to be hell on the next generation. And on the cost of health care.

I didn't watch the video so I can't comment on Meme's comments except to say that if she was criticizing the accelerated increase in obesity, while avoiding any call for government action, that's cool.

Chad|5.28.07 @ 2:42PM|#

I'll be damned if nuts like MeMe try to control what I eat, but she is right on one point: The government does need to "promote exercise". How so? By undoing the horrible effects of the road subsidies they have been dishing out for the past century. If you have ever been in a civilized country outside the US, you have probably experienced this fascinating system called "public transportation". It works wonderfully at its primary objective of getting people from point A to point B in an efficient manner, but also provides ample opportunity for low-intensity exercise (walking, biking, etc). And for all you hard-core libertarians, it doesn't even need to be run by the government. Japans are not, for example. The main system (Japan Railways, JR) was originally, but it was privatized some time ago. Many private lines grew up alongside JR, and a major city often has 3-4 companies competing.

Unfortunately, the goverment's mistaken subsidies of the highway system have trapped us in a lock-in situation. Just like how we can't escape the metric system or QWERTY keyboard, we can't escape the highway system they built. Public transport networks increase in value exponentially. Having only one line is nearly worthless. Two lines connect twice as many places, three lines four times as many, and so forth. There is little incentive to build the first few lines,

The only way out from this government-created trap is, unfortunately, more government. We should follow the model of Japan and quit investing heavily in roads, and transfer the money to public transport. When the system becomes self-sustaining, it can then be privatized.

|5.28.07 @ 2:47PM|#

MeMe seems to have raised Bulemia to a high art form.

Rather than jabbing her finger down her throat, she's figured out how to reflexively spew bile at the sight of a video camera.

Cesar|5.28.07 @ 2:57PM|#

"The only way out from this government-created trap is, unfortunately, more government. We should follow the model of Japan and quit investing heavily in roads, and transfer the money to public transport. When the system becomes self-sustaining, it can then be privatized."

If the MTA in New York City, the most heavily used public transit system in the nation can't turn a profit, how would that ever work?

edna|5.28.07 @ 3:13PM|#

I've never studied French, but wouldn't "Tete de Merde" be more appropriate?

neither have i, but since the implication of the english idiom is "a head comprised of shit," i'd think it would be "tete en merde."

how do you say, "paycheck from fox, sweet gig," en francais?

|5.28.07 @ 3:20PM|#

And for some reason, MeMe and the National Action Against Obesity reminds me of Arrested Development's Lindsay Bluth and HOOP.
Except that HOOP has a good point, even if the JDL is after their asses.

D.A. Ridgely|5.28.07 @ 4:56PM|#

Eradicate Secondhand Obesity

Any chance this might mean I could force really fat people in restaurants to take their meals outside so I'm not dangerously exposed to their gluttony?

Not that I'd do that, mind you, but it's a sweet thought.

Clemsonuee|5.28.07 @ 5:18PM|#

Why does the Burger King hate us you ask?

He hates us for our freedom. He rules The Burger Land with an iron fist, and as one of the last absolute rulers out there he knows that if he doesn't make all our teenager overweight and out of shape, once we are done in Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and France we are coming after him next.

|5.28.07 @ 7:16PM|#

Well, I've studied just enough French, I mean Freedomish, to know that 'tête de merde' is an acceptable translation of 'shithead', if not exactly idiomatic.

|5.28.07 @ 7:58PM|#

Yeah, I'll listen to people like her when she starts demonizing people who are below optimum BMI as well.

|5.28.07 @ 10:10PM|#

To stop that MeMe 1-2-3
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble free
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...
Guarantee void in Tennessee!

Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!

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lunchstealer|5.29.07 @ 12:22PM|#

One problem in this country when it comes to obesity is we're too p.c. to say overweight is overweight.

One other problem in this country is we're too p.c. to say shrill and bitchy is shrill and bitchy.

I stand behind the above statement somewhere around 72%

Brian Mora|5.31.07 @ 4:05PM|#

Meredith "It's ALL about ME-ME" Roth --- you sick, twisted, retarded, fringe minority, neoliberal, neosocialist, ninny-nanny neocommunist jackbooted food fascist cunt --- you make a person with Down's Syndrome look like Leonardo DaFuckingVinci with your lying liberal sayso, you liberal blanket statements, your liberal fucking bullshit, and your assault on our culinary and dietary freedoms.

Do us a favour, MeMe, you terrorist-appeasing communist traitor, get the fuck out of my country and STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY COUNTRY, you bloody fucking Communist cunt. Go move to Cuba, where the extremely austere dietary rations issued by your dream government are more in line with your deluded beliefs, and go suck Fidel Castro's shrivelled-up, cancer-riddled dick!

Signed by a seventh-generation Hispanic American of Cherokee descent, and a proud member of the true American patriot real conservative vast majority in support of dietary and culinary freedom.

|6.1.07 @ 2:00PM|#

Quote: "What seems in comparison to morbid obesity to be "just a little extra weight" does indeed increase our children's odds significantly for diabetes, heart disease, etc...and even more so if someone is Latino, African American, Asian or Native American"

Is it just me or did anyone else notice that MeMe managed to cover every cultural group that is of colour. She even used the word Asian which is a very wide sweeping word to cover a wide variety of racial/cultural groups. It makes me wonder if MeMe thinks white caucasians have a special gene that doesn't make them more prone to diabetes, heart disease etc. even when they put on a little weight

And if MeMe would like to know, I am a 47 year old, physically active female who falls well within her BMI scale - a far cry from the rail thin MeMe though. I do think that the percentage of people in the western world who have unhealthy body weights is higher than it should be. An unhealthy body weight to me is not only being over weight but being under weight. I think I would take MeMe more seriously, when she addresses the issue of being under weight as have serious health risks, if I wasn't listening to a woman who looks like she may develop some serious health issues herself if she became any thinner.

Call me stupid MeMe but I listened your interview and I'm pretty sure your message was that Jordan Sparks shouldn't win because she wasn't a good role model as she was over weight.

|6.7.07 @ 6:12PM|#

I am going to give Meme the benefit of the doubt here. Let's say there is an "obesity epidemic" going on here in the US, and there may be. What exactly is her goal here...awareness, to tell everyone that they are fat? People that are overweight KNOW they are overweight. We don't need a skinny big-mouth cheerleader with bleached blonde hair to tell us!!!! Like fat people WANT to be fat?!?!

You know there was another group of people with a very infamous leader who tried to make everyone look a certain way, to fit everyone into the "ideal" mold. It was Adolf Hiter and the Nazis, remember them?

And hey, I know! Let's just ban EVERYTHING that is bad for you! No more cigarettes, cigars, sunbathing, tanning beds, cell phones (because they may cause brain cancer), any and all food that is not fat free and sugar free, television and computers (all that electrostic energy can't be good for you).....the list could go on forever. People would be reduced to prehistoric luxuries. You would be allowed to sit in your cave and paint....with all natural, no artificial additives paint, of course. And don't overdo it, you'll get carpal tunnel and THAT wouldn't be healthy.

Maybe she should look into the effects of long-term effects of chemical hair treatments. I think the bleach is causing brain trauma and clouding her judgement.

Jill\'s ass|6.7.07 @ 8:13PM|#

Er, why does anybody pay any attention to this person. Meredith Roth is a PR person with no training (that I've been able to find) in either medicine, nursing, or nutrition. Her opinion is no more valuable than the person standing next to you on an elevator on any given day. She's just another pseudoexpert with psychotic features.

wow gold cheap|11.7.09 @ 12:41AM|#

Maybe she should look into the effects of long-term effects of chemical hair treatments. I think the bleach is causing brain trauma and clouding her judgement.

|11.11.09 @ 1:22PM|#

This woman is a mental case. She needs to be put away, have her kids taken away for child abuse, and get some kind of illness that makes her a fat cow.

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