04-19-2009, 09:08 PM
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#476 (permalink)
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| Gone
Stoking the fires of Hell
Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: New York City
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| The bill was never serious. Quote:
(CBS/AP) A lawmaker in the fattest state in the nation says he wasn't trying to offend anybody by filing a bill that would ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers.
He says he never even expected his plan to become law.
"I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi," said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier.
"It was a far-reaching bill, but you're trying to get people's attention to study the proper motive of obesity which is a concern to all of us," Read told CBS News'The Early Show. "Sometimes you have to go a little extreme to get the dialogue started."
Mississippi is the first state where more than 30 percent of adults are considered obese, according to a 2007 study by the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.
The state House Public Health Committee chairman, Democrat Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he is going to "shred" the bill filed by Read and two other House members, Republican Ted Mayhall of Southaven and Democrat Bobby Shows of Ellisville.
"While I appreciate the efforts of my fellow House members to help curb the obesity problem in Mississippi, this is totally the wrong approach," Holland said in a news release, reports the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
| http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n3790418.shtml |
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