This starts with two facts,
1. Just because you are diabetic doesn't mean you are fat;
2. Just because you are fat doesn't mean you will get diabetes.
I felt the need for these two facts to be fresh in people's minds for the two infuriating stories I am covering today.
No one knows for sure what causes autism. It could be anything, genetics, low birth rates, later in life pregnancies and better diagnosis (autism may have been diagnosed differently in the past as retardation or bad behavior). Now comes a new study saying fat mothers are bad because they are giving their children autism. After all every single autistic child has a fat momma right? Right?
As far as fat women and autism, there could a host of reasons for the increased rate including: dieting, weight loss surgery, poor prenatal care (Fat women often do not get the best of care), and the high rates at which doctors perform C-sections on fat women.
Or could it be that the study itself was based on fat women with metabolic disorders? Not healthy fat women. The gist is women with metabolic diseases might have a higher rate of autism but that doesn't mean fat mothers have more kids with autism (or even that MD have more autistic kids; the sample size was 1000 from California only and self reported). It is the false assumption that all fat women have or will get diabetes and hypertension. Diabetes is a complex disease. Merely simplifying it down to weight loss creates a horrific risk for thin people who have it in their family.
And it is our irresponsible media that ran with "all the fat mother's fault", because in reality what they really want is fat women to stop breeding. After all fat parents are more likely to make more fat people and we wouldn't want that.
I've spoken before on soda. It's a tax that doesn't affect me because I don't drink soda. I'm now perfectly willing to have a tax on soda as long as it's on Pepsi. Pepsico, yes the soda maker is now charging it's smoking and fat bottlers and drivers $50 more per month for health coverage. Yes,
Pepsico the makers of Pepsi, 7up, Mountain Dew, Lipton, Lays potato chips wants to charge "unhealthy" employees $50 more a month. What next? Is Marlboro going to charge more for smokers? (Also all these employees are unionized but union busting is another story for another blog.)
And when they talk about fat, they actually mean "Obesity related diseases" which at this rate is diabetes, hypertension, cancer, global warming, autism, plane crashes, stroke, car accidents, and plumber's crack. Now if you have one of these diseases, but are thin do you get $50 charge and if you are fat and healthy do you still get that charge? Targeting diseases is a horrific slippery slope that will lead to employers hiring only perceived healthy people, and firing anyone who gets a disease. It also faults diseases on those who got them. We need to learn that it's very rare that someone brings a disease on to themselves.
So now I'm for a soda tax. $50 tax on all pepsi products to go into a fund to cover the employees forced to pay this ridiculousness.
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