Note to the government

Stay out of my food pantry. According to yesterday's WSJ, there are 55 bills introduced in the current Congress which contain the word "obesity," approaching the number containing, "guns."

But perhaps nothing beats the bizarre, "calorie transfer" idea. It reminds me of the reverse of "Eat all your vegetables. There are children starving in China" that we heard during my childhood. Any child with half a brain probably wondered how this was going to help Chinese children. (Communists killed millions and millions of them by starvation and other means, but I doubt if cleaning up my lima beans helped them much.)

"The fundamental causes of obesity in the developed world are well recognized: overconsumption of high-energy, nutritionally poor foods, and reduced levels of exercise, ie, an excess of calorie intake over expenditure. The fundamental cause of malnutrition in the third world is a low-calorie diet, ie, a deficiency of calorie intake over expenditure. What unites the 2 halves of the global nutritional crisis into a single issue are these 2 simple realities.

So what can be done? The challenge is to create sustainable initiatives that can help those in the west to lose weight and create sustainable initiatives for food production and distribution in the third world. Calorie Transfer (www.calorietransfer.com) is an initiative that is looking to achieve just this and is based on a very simple concept 1) For every calorie removed from a diet in the first world, one or more calories should be added to someone's diet in the third world; 2) for every dollar spent on slimming products or vitamins, a cent should be contributed to third-world nutrition."

The problem in third world countries is not a shortage of calories, but a shortage of decent governments. In the 1930s, the Ukrainians didn't starve because they couldn't grow food; millions of North Koreans are on the brink of starvation, not because of lack of calories, but because of their government. Do you think there is not enough money in the Sudan to buy food? It's Arab Muslims killing black Muslims and that includes starvation. Corruption, ethnic wars, religious wars, no infrastructure to ship what could go to market, stores rotting at docks to be eaten by rats and stolen by thieves--none of this is going to change if I eat 100 calories less a day.

Lose weight and exercise, but don't throw your hard earned money down a black hole out of trumped up guilt. This organization sounds about as reliable as those e-mails you get from "African princes" who have lost their estates and only need 2 million dollars. If you want to help, use a well known organization with a long track record of working with local relief agencies like Lutheran World Relief, or Mennonite Central Committee or Baptist World Alliance. If you're not planning to improve the water sources, the agricultural methods, and the roads, you're just part of the problem, no matter how many pounds you shed.