The Freedom to Be Fat? The Politics of Movie Popcorn, Obama, and the FDA

thedailybeast.com — Back in a very different era, my dad drove a 1974 Chrysler Imperial. An insane artifact by today’s standards, it featured a 7.2-liter engine and had an interior that was larger in footprint terms than many New York City kitchens. Today, that Imperial—in the new, post-OPEC crisis world, Chrysler started making them smaller the very next year—is a symbol of an age that’s unthinkable to most of us today. I’ve long thought that today’s equivalent of the Imperial is that massive tub of movie popcorn, large enough that an infant could be bathed in it. One of these days, after we’ve quit worrying about labels like “nanny state” and sorted out the difference between “freedom” and mere selfishness or stupidity, we’ll look back on it as madness. Until then, we’ll have Democratic White Houses overruling the FDA out of fear of Fox News.

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