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Obese CNN commentator slams Sarah Palin's views on 'Let's Move' Nanny State

By April MacIntyre Nov 30, 2010, 5:30 GMT

Not fond of Big Government, CNN\'s Roland Martin\'s foe Sarah Palin - © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

CNN's Roland Martin dislikes Sarah Palin, if you are new to watching CNN.

Palin is a trim, athletic and active woman who bedevils the left and the right, established old guard "blue bloods" and left-of-center types like Martin who categorize Palin as the "Kim Kardashian" of politics. 

The former Governor of Alaska is unnerving to many groups for several different reasons, yet her popularity soars while CNN scrapes the bottom of the barrel for ratings

Martin opined, "It's clear that we can't go 24 hours without Sarah Palin saying something so stupid that it defies logic, but leave it to the Kim Kardashian of politics to find something wrong with first lady Michelle Obama's effort to curb obesity in America's kids."

He references Palin's radio interview with Laura Ingraham, where Palin remarked about the Obama "Let's Move" initiative, which is all about getting children active and involved in exercise and healthy eating.  Palin thinks that the reach of it exceeds a normal first lady "cause."

Palin wants people to be responsible for themselves, and for government to stay out of people's lives.  Her views are representative of a large group of people who are tired of ruling class of politicians and pundits deciding what is best for us all via intrusive legislation.

Another like-minded type of Martin's is MeMe Roth, a regular on rival network Fox News and Fox Business Network. 

She takes the nanny state fat chatter up a notch and regulary criticizes people who eat anything remotely "pleasurable" in her words.  Her interview with the Guardian reveals her shame of her mother she calls fat: "When I was in kindergarten," she recalls, "no one taught me to be ashamed of obesity, but the day, on my birthday, that my mother was to bring cupcakes to my class, I put my head on the table because I knew that within minutes my mother would be there and everyone was going to know that my mother was fat. I felt ashamed. I was grateful that down the block there was another mother who was fatter than my mother."

Obesity is a huge, worldwide problem and has been for a while.  The perfect storm of unscrupulous food marketing, lack of early education and abandonment of physical education and the real coffin nail of technology has delivered a generation of sedentary fat kids who grow up to be much larger, diseased (diabetic) grown ups.  

As bad as the problem is, other than guarding the food supply via the FDA (woefully underfunded) do you think it is the government's place to step in and regulate your pantry?   Or should "Let's Move" filter up by educating parents through churches and schools via educational seminars, to retrain people's bad habits on a voluntary basis?

Again, Palin is a mother of five whose active life led in scenic Alaska has kept her slim and healthy, whereas Martin hails from Houston, Texas, one of the fattest cities in one of the fattest states in all of America. 

Who is right, Martin and MeMe, or Palin for taking a stand against the Nanny state?  What would be your solution?

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