Snacks (page 23)

Every year chocolate is celebrated on Valentine's Day for its sensual romantic symbolism, its power as an aphrodisiac to awaken slumbering passions. But now science is discovering that chocolate has many health benefits. (The nannies can't be happy about this.) Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Charity Ferreira humorously writes that "now is the time to share a chocolate dessert with your valentine, before it loses its cachet and becomes as romantic as a bowl of oat bran."

An early Nanny Award nomination goes to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer John Fauber for this sanctimonious article in which he talks of watching “in horror as a couple and…

Time magazine’s health columnist Christine Gorman found out just how much nannyism pervades our culture. The upcoming edition of the magazine’s “From the Editor” column features her travails in choosing…

Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter unjustly blames restaurant portion sizes for obesity. At least someone at Tufts has the sense to realize, ''It's not the restaurant industry's responsibility to keep Americans from overeating. Restaurant meals keep getting bigger, but no matter how big they get, it's up to the diner to push the plate away, share a meal or ask for a hefty doggy bag,'' says Larry Lindner, executive editor of the Tufts newsletter.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest and its founder Michael Jacobson – The nannies at CSPI will do and say almost anything to get the government to slap…

Our friends at Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) have given Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton the "Porker of the Month" award for introducing a bill for a "national program to significantly reduce" obesity. As CAGW puts it, "One would hope rational people are capable of figuring out what to eat for lunch -- but apparently Ms. Norton doesn't think the federal government is spending enough on this supposed problem."

So if you raise the price of “junk food” with a Twinkie tax and subsidize the price of “healthy food” with money from the Twinkie tax so that the “healthy…

The latest Consumer Reports blames rising obesity on restaurant portion sizes: "Supersized servings that make restaurant dinners look like a bargain have distorted our sense of serving sizes and are packing pounds on the American physique." Again we say, no one makes anyone eat anything. ("Food for thought 2001," Consumer Reports, January 2001)

The Worldwatch Institute warns of the dangers of rising obesity rates. Worldwatch blames obesity mostly on people’s lack of exercise, but puts a good deal of the blame on…

NBC Today show correspondent Phil Lempert, commenting on restaurants' alleged link to rising obesity rates, questions "the social consciousness of a super-sizing strategy that emphasizes high-fat, high-calorie food." As we've said before, no one forces anyone to eat anything. ("Dining well in a jumbo-portioned world," Los Angeles Times, 12/18/00)