Chris Christie’s Weight Irrelevant to White House Bid

If democracy means electing leaders who are most similar to a majority of citizens, then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could win the presidency by a crushing margin in November 2012.

Sixty-eight percent of adult Americans are overweight, and more than a third of adult Americans are obese; 20 percent or more above what the government defines as a healthy weight for our height.

"Let me have men about me that are fat," says Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare's play. "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look . . . such men are dangerous."

After four years of a lean, hungry, cigarette-smoking Barack Obama, Americans may be ready for a president who shares their values and comfort foods.

Americans may eagerly vote for someone who shares their hunger to restore our nation's prosperity and abbondanza, and for a first lady who will not try to control what they and their children eat as Michelle Obama has done.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure based on height and weight. A BMI score of 25-29.9 is, by government standards, overweight. A score above 30 defines obesity. The New Republic estimated Gov. Christie's BMI at 46.6.

Does physical unfitness and his weight-related asthma make Christie unfit to be president and a bad role model for America's children — 18 percent of whom are obese? Liberals famously justify every expansion of government power as being done "for the children."

The Obamas have promoted a national system of weight surveillance of every American child. Like Hillarycare and Obamacare, this allows government prying into our medical privacy. At least 17 states, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, California, and Texas, now require schools to assess and record each student's BMI.

On Saturday, Denmark showed us where such cradle-to-grave surveillance by the liberal nanny state and its pleasure police can lead. A law took effect Oct. 1 in this Euro-socialist welfare state that imposes a new tax of $1.60 per pound on saturated fat in foods. The tax will increase the price of a pack of butter by 50 cents, a bag of potato chips by 12 cents, and a pound of beef by 20 cents.

"The biggest price increases will be seen on fatty foods like butter, oils, and high-fat dairy products like whipping cream and crème fraiche," reported The Copenhagen Post.

"But all products with more than 2.3 percent saturated fat — from staples like butter to processed foods like packaged biscuits, cakes and sweets — will . . . be more expensive."

Denmark's health authorities claim that roughly 4 percent of the country's premature deaths result from eating saturated fat. Their tax aims to reduce such consumption by 10 percent. Denmark is also taxing olive oil, a monounsaturated fat that many medical researchers believe improves health and longevity.

Liberal governments will not ban killer substances but are eager to profit from taxing them. (PBS this week began airing Ken Burns' new documentary "Prohibition" about the failed "Progressive" Nanny Statist attempt to outlaw alcohol.)

On Sept. 1, Hungary imposed a new tax on foods high in fat, sugar and/or salt from which it expects to reap $70 million Euros a year for government coffers. Finland and Romania are hungrily eyeing the revenue potential of imposing "fat taxes" of their own.

Since April, Arizona has considered a $50 tax on obese Medicare patients, which could punish some for having a "fat gene." If health and not revenue is the issue, asks Wesley J. Smith, then why not likewise tax those who engage in risky sexual behavior?

President Chris Christie as a role model could help restore health to our body politic by reminding us daily that gluttonous government is obese and must be put on a strict diet to reduce its unhealthy size.

Lowell Ponte is co-author, with Craig R. Smith, of "Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse"; "The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us . . . And Seven Ways to Stop It"; and "Re-Making Money: Ways to Restore America’s Optimistic Golden Age."