America's emerging fat war threatens to pit a shrinking population of trim Americans against an
expanding population of heavy Americans in raging policy debates over fat taxes and fat bans.
These fat policies would be designed to constrain what people eat and drink - and theoretically
crimp the growth in Americans' waistlines and in the country's healthcare costs. Richard
McKenzie's HEAVY! The Surprising Reasons America Is the Land of the Free-And the Home of the
Fat offers new insight into the economic causes and consequences of America's dramatic weight
gain over the past half century. It also uncovers the follies of seeking to remedy the
country's weight problems with government intrusions into people's excess eating arguing that
controlling people's eating habits is fundamentally different from controlling people's smoking
habits. McKenzie controversially links America's weight gain to a variety of causes: the growth
in world trade freedom the downfall of communism the spread of free-market economics the
rise of women's liberation the long-term fall in real minimum wage and the rise of
competitive markets on a global scale. In no small way - no in a very BIG way - America is the
home of the fat because it has been for so long the land of the free. Americans' economic if
not political freedoms however will come under siege as well-meaning groups of anti-fat
warriors seek to impose their dietary health and healthcare values on everyone else. HEAVY!
details the unheralded consequences of the country's weight gain which include greater fuel
consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases reduced fuel efficiency of cars and planes
growth in health insurance costs and fewer insured Americans reductions in the wages of heavy
people andrequired reinforcement of rescue equipment and hospital operating tables. McKenzie
advocates a strong free-market solution to how America's weight problems should and should not
be solved. For Americans to retain their cherished economic freedoms of choice heavy people
must be held fully responsible for their weight-related costs and not be allowed to shift blame
for their weight to their genes or environment. Allowing heavy Americans to shift
responsibility for their weight gain can only exacerbate the country's weight problems.
