If it's for the children, you can interfere with impunity

The New England Journal of Medicine strategizes ways to get more anti-obesity legislation passed.

"First, initiatives are most likely to gain acceptance if they focus on children and adolescents." Second, states need to experiment with regulations, although "[c]areful evaluation of state initiatives is needed." Thirdly, "[a]dditional research on advertising and obesity may help build the case for regulation" of children's advertising. Fourth, industry should be motivated to self-regulate "improving the healthfulness of foods sold." And, finally, "the initial regulatory strategy should concentrate on improving public awareness of the role of the food industry and the food environment -- the social, physical, and economic conditions that affect access to healthful and unhealthful foods -- in contributing to the nation's obesity problem."

"Over time," the authors conclude, "a greater understanding of the environmental influences on food choices should create the ideological conditions for further regulation." But such "progressive laws are unlikely to be implemented until the dominant cultural mores are sufficiently favorable."

Yup, keep plugging away at those "ideological conditions." It definitely works.

Via Instapundit.