Saw the oddest thing at the gym last night. I really wish I had brought my camera, or had a cell phone camera on me. A guy walks in wearing Christmasy-red shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and Santa shoes. He’s sporting a long white beard, a bowl-full-of-jelly-like belly, and pink cheeks. Yep. Dead ringer for good ol’ Santa Clause. At Bally’s. Working out. He chose a treadmill in front of a TV showing the Louisville-Rutgers game. He then spent the next hour working up a sweat–slight incline, and a brisk, mall-walk pace, towel tossed over his right shoulder, the white tails of iPod buds dangling around his neck. This really did happen. It was pretty surreal. Also, Santa is a sweater.

I bring this up because I entirely coincidentally saw this story today, which may well explain the weirdity last night. The U.S. Surgeon General has apparently had enough of fat Santas. You know, for the children and stuff.

David Harsanyi, whose book on the Nanny State is In my book, I discuss the often arbitrary nature of the FCC’s take on speech.

In any event, which red-blooded American is going to complain about PBS airing a soldier using the acronym FUBAR? Does anyone else find it ironic that a film documenting the great sacrifices of freedom will have the words of the very men who fought for it edited out?

Crazy story.

Many of Britain’s millions of public surveillance cameras are now talking. If they spot you engaging in uncivil behavior, they scold you. Even weirder:

…to make the systems seem more friendly, they’re talking about holding contests for local school children to become the “voice” of the surveillance cameras.

I can’t think of anything more apropos of the almost-fully-realized UK Nanny State dystopia than an anonymous British child scolding the citizenry over a loud speaker for littering or loitering or public ass-scratching.

“Please sir, remove your hand from her bum. No public affection on city streets is permitted.”

Looks like Philadelphia will join Chicago, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco in the quest for the title of Most Paternalistic City in America.

I can hardly stand the excitement. Who will win?!?

Surely not the people who live in any of those places.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. What is the most Nanny Statist city in America? Send me your nominations and reasons why. I think I’ll write an article soon laying out the criteria, and then declaring a winner/loser.

Your silly Nanny State item of the day:

On the eve of London Fashion Week the growing trend for “size-zero” models in the fashion industry is causing grave concern.

Experts say legislation is now needed to protect the health of the models and of the teenage girls and young women who are influenced by them.

They are urging London to follow the lead taken by Madrid — and likely to be adopted by Milan — of banning models below a certain size from the catwalks.

Under any ban, super-thin models such as Lily Cole would be barred. London Fashion Week, which begins next week, has so far refused to follow suit.

[...]

Steve Bloomfield, spokesman for the Eating Disorders Association, said today: “We do think legislation is needed.

“This is about protecting the young women and men who work in the fashion industry, as well as those who are at risk of an eating disorder and can be influenced by the pictures that they see.

Given that skinny women are hopelessly manipulated by the fashion industry, and that obese women are hopelessly manipulated by the food industry, I propose the following magic-bullet legislation:

The government buy every obese person subscriptions to the top fashion magazines; meanwhile every skinny person should be forced to sit through a dozen McDonalds, sugary cereal, and Hostess cupcake commercials.

In six months, we’ll all wear the same size, and everyone will finally be equal.

Nanny staters take on cartoon land:

They chase each other at high speed wielding axes and hammers. But the famous cartoon duo of Tom and Jerry are in trouble in Britain for smoking on screen.

A channel airing the cartoons has agreed to cut scenes that glamorize smoking after British media regulator Ofcom received a complaint from a viewer who took offence at two episodes.

In the first, “Texas Tom,” the hapless cat Tom tries to impress a feline female by rolling a cigarette, lighting it and smoking it with one hand. In the second, “Tennis Chumps,” Tom’s opponent in a match smokes a large cigar.

Droopy wouldn’t put up with this shit.

Nutrition activist Bary Popkin announced at a conference last week that obesity at officially “overtaken” malnutrition at the world’s top nutrition-related “burden.” Popkin rather crudely suggests that because there are by his measure some 1.4 billion obese versus just 800 million facing starvation, obesity now poses more of a threat than malnutrition. Popkin suggests that in response, “food prices could be used to control people’s diets” — nanny-speak for a fat tax.

The food industry-backed Center fo Consumer Freedom, I think, puts it best:

Even if Popkin’s calculations stand, there’s still something seriously wrong with his picture. Are overeating and starving really comparable problems? Can they really be (sorry) weighted equally? Does a Des Moines factory worker who is ten pounds overweight have a like interest in correcting his health as a chronically undernourished Sudanese child?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have officially lost all perspective. Welcome to the ranks of the food cops.

The obesity crusade really is a moral panic, immune to any semblance of perspective or propriety.

I obviously don’t think the boyfriends of famous people should get any sort of special treatment when it comes to having to obey the law. Nor should public officials wield power to get paramours of the hook.

Still, it’s hard to escape the fact that, ultimately, the attorney general of New Jersey was just forced to resign because the guy she was dating wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.

I was asked to go head-to-head with nutrition nanny Marion Nestle (for the second time), this time for a forthcoming textbook on nutrition. The topic was what role the food industry should play in encouraging “healthy” habits. The question made some assumptions I don’t agree with (as one might expect from a text book in the public health field).

The four questions, and my answers:

Is the consumer pressured by food companies to buy more heavily advertised foods, such as sweetened beverages, cookies, candies, and snack items? Why or why not?

I doubt it. Advertising’s two main purposes are to foster brand loyalty and to bump customers up to a higher line (read: more expensive) of product. Most people are smart enough to know that fruits and vegetables are better for them than cookies and chips. If you’ve made the conscious decision to eat healthy, television commercials aren’t going to bring you back to pizza and donuts. If more Americans are skipping the produce section for the snack aisle, that’s of course their prerogative. I don’t blame the food companies for what ultimately is an exercise in personal choice.

Is there research to support your point of view?

My point of view is driven primarily by philosophy — what we put into our mouths ought to be our own business, not the business of nutrition activists, government bureaucrats, or politicians. I don’t think we need much research to prove the point that most of us know that produce is better for our health than ice cream. One thing that often gets lost in these debates is just how healthy America really is. Life expectancy continues to reach all-time highs in America. Deaths from heart disease, cancer, and stroke — the country’s three biggest killers — have been in decline for 15 years. Our waistlines may be getting thicker, but it isn’t clear that that poses any large-scale threat to our overall health.

How can the food industry help consumers purchase and eat more fruits and vegetables?

It isn’t so much what the food industry can do as what the government can do — or should stop doing. I do agree with the nutrition activists that government should stop subsidizing corn, and should lift its tariffs on sugar. These policies create unnatural distortions in the food market. Another suggestion: Access seems to be the main problem when it comes to produce and low-income people. Big box stores such as Wal-Mart have figured out how to get inexpensive, high-quality produce to low-income consumers. We should be applauding when big box grocers open stores in urban areas, not chasing them out of town.

What responsibility do food companies have to help Americans eat healthfully?

Individual Americans are responsible for their own diets, not food companies. A company’s only real responsibility is to (1) make profits for its shareholders, and (2) be honest and forthright about what it’s putting on the market. If a food company is misleading or untruthful about its product, then yes, it should be held accountable. But to offer one example, Baskin-Robbins makes ice cream. It has always made ice cream. I see no reason why a company that has always made a product meant to be consumed as an indulgence has any “responsibility” to help Americans “eat healthfully.” If Americans truly want to eat healthy, companies that produce healthy foods will flourish. But I see no reason why a fast food company, for example, should take a loss or go out of business pushing health food no one wants to buy.

Psychology Today has a lengthy article on how trial lawyers, Nanny Staters, and the self-esteem industry have created a generation of helmeted, elbow-padded, sharp-corners-dulled, emotionally fragile wimps who tend to break down when they get to college.

I’d go a bit further, and suggest that today, the coddling continues through college. I actually found college easier than high school. These kids then hit the real world, and are mortified when confronted with real risk and real responsibility, obligations that actually have to fulfilled, and that their own success or failure is — Egad! — in their own hands. Of course, that’s when they start whining, and asking the government for help.

Call it Anya Kamenetz Syndrome.

Eric McErlain did the grunt work, and found out some fascinating stuff on that dumb proposed law in Massachusetts that would require kids to wear helmets while playing soccer.

Probably won’t surprise you to learn that the bill (and much of the “science” justifying it) is being pushed by a company that specializes in producing helmets for soccer players.

It probably will surprise you to learn that the original bill contained language that would have banned headers from youth soccer games.

You think at times that Nanny Staters couldn’t get more absurd.

And then they do.

This Washington Post op-ed from career Nanny Statists Joe Califano and Louis Sullivan reads like your standard public health talking points: Unless adult-orietned products taste nasty, bitter, and disgusting, the companies who manufacture them will forever be accused of “marketing to children.”

Here’s my favorite part:

Buoyed by its success in pushing candy-flavored cigarettes, Reynolds has now introduced alcohol-flavored smokes. To make them appealing to our kids, Reynolds has marketed them with names based on gambling lingo as well: ScrewDriver Slots, BlackJack Gin, Snake Eyes Scotch and Back Alley Blend (a bourbon-flavored cigarette).

Color me befuddled. So R.J. Reynolds is guilty of preying on kids because it’s marketing cigarettes (which can only be purchased by people over 18) that taste like alcohol (which can only be purchased by people over 21) with gambling-themed names (only people over 18 (21, in some states) are permitted to gamble)?

Everything about those products is adult-oriented! Yet for Califano and Sullivan, this is evidence that R.J. Reynolds is targeting youngsters.

Less than 24 hours after Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle crash, the Cincinnati Post runs an editorial demanding federal motorcycle helmet laws. Nut quote:

At one time all states required helmets, but under pressure from those who advocate “freedom” lawmakers in 30 states have rolled back those laws, including in Ohio and Kentucky.

Ben Roethlisberger is a grown-up. He made a grown-up decision. Consciously (he has boasted about not wearing a helmet when he rides). He’s now paying for that decision. It’s not the government’s job to regulate away risk. It’s telling that personal freedom is so scarce these days that editorial writers feel the need to put the word in scare quotes.

Last November, Jacob Sullum wrote an excellent piece for Reason on why motorcycle enthusiasts were able to beat back helmet laws, and why, by comparison, Nanny State foes couldn’t defeat mandatory seat belt laws.

Thanks to Jessie Creel for the tip.

From the PR wires:

As part of this partnership, the “CARS” World Premiere will include a new safety public service announcement developed for the Department’s “Click It or Ticket” campaign. The ad contains a strong safety message about the need for families to wear safety belts, and will be distributed to the Department of Transportation’s national, state and local highway safety partners.

Swell.

That’s the subject of my Fox column this week.