Mark D. White

Mark D. White

In his column in this morning's New York Times, Mark Bittman reiterates his call for regulation of the amount of sugar Americans consume, such as taxing sugary foods and adding them to the list of items for which food stamps cannot be used–nothing new there. (I've discussed Bittman before here.)

After presenting his case for sugar regulation, he asks,

The question “Is this necessary?” is unavoidable. But as obesity and its consequences ravage our health care system, we struggle not only with our own diets but also with preventing our children from falling into the same traps. Last year a brigade of parents stood watch outside a corner store in North Philadelphia in an attempt to prevent their kids from buying junk food.

They’ve been called foot soldiers, but you might call them vigilantes. Vigilantism occurs when people believe the government isn’t doing its job. We need the government on our side. It must acknowledge the dangers caused by the most unhealthy aspects of our diet and figure out how to help us cope with them, because this is the biggest public health challenge facing the developed world.

Vigilantes? He casts parents as vigilantes for doing their job–parenting–and blames the government for not "doing its job"–which is parenting. Vigilantes usurp legitimate roles of the state, such as criminal justice–not taking care of our kids.

For the record, I have no problem with schools limiting their own food offerings to healthy foods and eliminating junk food from school vending machines, but these parents were trying to stop their kids from eating junk outside of school–which, again, is their job, not the government's.