Helping Them to Help Themselves

Less than a month after Britain's lissom, slender Head Boy declared his war on fat people, it appears that the UK is already in danger of being overtaken in the race to make the obese feel the weight of their irresponsibility. The government of Puerto Rico is considering a new law which would enable parents of overweight children to be charged with neglect and fined. According to the president of the Puerto Rico chapter of the American Academy of Paediatrics, "they’re not involving pediatricians, nutritionists, dieticians, the people who prepare the lunches in schools, in any of this. Teachers aren’t trained to identify obese children; they don’t have the time, the facilities or the knowledge. They’re asking people with no knowledge of dealing with obesity to identify these patients." While it is certainly refreshing to see the Third World adopting the enlightened approach and advanced social measures of faith-based governments in the West, Britain's Head Boy will no doubt be a little concerned to see the UK falling behind like this, especially as Puerto Rico is already far closer to achieving the levels of poverty and deprivation at which all two and a half branches of the British Neoliberal Party have been aiming for so long.