Satire Essay “A Modest Proposal”

Obesity is a major epidemic in America. American’s are known for their obsession with food. At church last Sunday, the pastor was preaching on the topic of “fasting”. Fasting would be defined as the abstinence from eating certain or all foods in an effort to rely solely on God for inner strength. The pastor talked about how we as Americans are constantly looking for our next meal. We are always anticipating when and what we are going to eat. We even schedule our entire days around mealtime. Americans are essentially obsessed with food. In an effort to change this aspect of our culture, I have devised a three-part plan.

The first part of this plan includes the mass reduction and legal limitation of processed and imported foods. This includes fast food, which is an American favorite. By banning all processed and imported foods, we stop all trans fat intake. We also limit carbohydrate intake. My monitoring and limiting the foods that Americans are eating, we can better control the “bad stuff” that they are putting in their bodies. If we are going to cut out all processed foods however, we must provide adequate supplements for nutritional needs. Vitamin packs would be provided for those who are considered medically obese. We could just start super gluing people’s mouths shut or putting braces on their arms so they could not bend their elbows in order to put food in their mouths. That may or may not be inhumane, but you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.

The second part of the plan includes the confiscation of all electronic devices that are not completely necessarily. Devices such as gaming systems, televisions, DVD players, BlueRay players, etc would be eliminated from all aspects of society that they were not completely necessary for. Obviously, televisions, DVD players, computers, cell phones, and those types of things would still be available for business and education needs. By eliminating these devices from leisurely societal use, people would not just be laying around watching television, or laying around on the computer. They would be more apt to get outside and be active. This would also promote more reading, socialization, higher order learning, critical thinking, and a generally more active lifestyle.

The third, final, and most critical aspect of this plan is the integration of daily exercise and general health and fitness education into people’s lifestyles. Health and fitness education seminars should be a regular thing. Some people have bad eating habits because they do not know how to have healthy eating habits. In these seminars, people would learn about caloric value, the nutrients that your body needs, things that your body does not need, portion control, and general health education information. These seminars would be held two or three times a year and everyone would have to take a physical exam and stress test. Your scores from the physical and stress test would determine the amount of classes and instructional time you must spend on health education.

All of these seminars and required courses, etc would be presented and hosted by the Department of Public Health. The final part of this aspect of the plan to defeat obesity includes mandatory exercise sessions that would be medically required for those considered to be medically obese. They would work with a trainer and a public health department gym as well as a nutritionist. They would be required to log their hours and would be fined if they did not complete them, unless they had a viable reason to be absent. If they were absent, they would have to provide sufficient documentation for their reasoning.

Obviously, this plan would be quite successful if it was not totally and completely unethical and immoral. Though the government provides many things to the citizens of this nation, it does not always provide what the citizens necessarily need.