WSJ.com - Trimming the Fat

WSJ.com - Opinion: Trimming the Fat

 

Rarely is there much good to say about the Obama Administration's health-care agenda, so its childhood anti-obesity campaign is a welcome turn. The American waistline is a genuine public health concern, and the White House's ideas may even do some good.

Nearly one of three children are overweight or obese, which is astonishing enough except that two-thirds of adults are too—and thus at risk for diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

Mostly, the White House plan encourages parents to be better role models. Obesity is the result of caloric imbalance, and the only way to prevent it is healthier habits like a better diet and more physical activity.

The ultimate solution is to give people direct financial incentives to be healthier, in the form of more personal responsibility for routine and preventable medical costs. National health care would do the opposite, so the best outcome would be if ObamaCare dies and the first lady's anti-obesity campaign results in some modest success.