Lady Obama Patriotically Fights Obesity One Cinnamon Roll at a Time, Has Clearly Seen Animal House But Not Stripes

Fresh from trying to push sludge-ridden organic vegetables on the Iron Chef chefs, Lady Michelle Obama has come out swinging against obesity, bravely taking on the powerful fat-shit lobby wots recalculating BMI scales, making 36-inch waist jeans roomier in the seat, making movie theater chairs roomier in the seat, and otherwise removing the stigma associated with being buried in piano cases.

In announcing her "Let's Move" campaign, Our Lady of Deltoids is pushing for nothing less than a call to well-toned arms that requires no French-style Minitel debacles or Gus Grissom-style launchpad accidents:

"This isn't like a disease where we're still waiting for a cure to be discovered – we know the cure for this," Obama said. "This isn't like putting a man on the moon or inventing the Internet. It doesn't take some stroke of genius or feat of technology.

This is what we get for voting in skinny guy after skinny guy after skinny guy to the White House (and let's face it, the only true chubster in the Oval Office since William Howard Taft was Bill Clinton, who slimmed down quickly and has kept the weight off, even if it's taken a couple of cardiac events to do so).

Mrs. Obama isn't just worried for the sake of fat kids in the Land of Plenty and the dangerously low national reserves of stretch fabric. No, she speaks a secret truth that all too many public figures are afraid to utter: Fat loads threaten our very survival in a world of increasing threats. Citing "a recent study" that proves that "obesity-related diseases" cost "$147 billion a year," she notes 

"This epidemic also impacts the nation's security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service."

Sweet fancy Moses, I thought I'd heard all the reasons that Nanny Staters trot out for slimming down, but this military service angle is a real freaking stunner, like a new line of Snapple flavors. And in a country that's been bogged down in two quagmire-like wars every bit as sticky and difficult to leave as a Golden Corral restaurant, Obama may have just given a new generation of draft-dodgers the new way out, especially now that pretending to be gay ain't gonna work no more.

More here, including plans to yet again reshape the dreaded USDA "food pyramid" into a ziggurat or a geodesic dome or some other equally useless imaginary shape.

This strikes me as one of the worst arguments ever for fighting obesity. Lady Obama is the perfect age to have learned via Animal House that being fat, drunk, and stupid was no way to go through life. But she also should have learned just a few years later from Stripes that the U.S. Army is the perfect staging ground for a weight-loss regimen that could turn even a lard-ass Canadian like John Candy into a lean, mean, fighting machine. Take it away Ox:

Reason has written a lot about obesity over the years. Dip into our archive, which is every bit as addictive as a chocolate fountain at a dessert buffet.