Feel-Good Fatties

Kerrie at the Liberal Heretic (no relation) has an observation about the obesity epidemic:

In an honest post on Facebook, my partner Sharon pointed out that the generation of I’m Special, has caused a severe epidemic here in America.

We’re fat, ladies.

Not just a little bit. We aren’t thick, big and beautiful, or “curvy”. We’re huge.

What most amazes me, perhaps because of my age, is how people who’re morbidly obese still manage to have an incredibly high self esteem. The reason I say this, is because when I was a child, being fat wasn’t an acceptable state in which to be. It was seen as a lack of self control, or laziness.

Now I’m not saying people aren’t genetically predisposed to obesity, and there are certainly medical conditions that exacerbate the problem. But most of us are fat because we’re more sedentary, we eat crappy food, and we have this new PC form of acceptance for obesity. Such as the titles above.

Knee-Jerk Anti-Bullying Legislation

Recently, a teenage girl committed suicide in Suffolk County, New York. Her parents are contemplating prosecuting other students who posted bullying and harassing comments on their daughters Facebook page, even though they do not believe that those comments caused her daughter to commit suicide. They just want the “hurtful” comments, which are still being posted to her Facebook page,  to stop.

Well, none too soon, the government has come to help! Suffolk County is drafting legislation to stop “cyber-bullying,” whatever that is.

Self-Esteem and Coddling Kids

George Will at Townhall comments on the dangers of coddling our children in order to preserve their precious self-esteem, and some of the myths perpetrated by the self-esteem crowd. Will column is a partial review of the book “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children,” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, which looks at how we treat our children, and how overprotecting them to save their self-esteem can cause more harm than good.