HHS uses Recovery Act money to fund New York City’s anti-obesity campaign

[Geee]

Daily Caller:

If you live in New York City, or have even traveled there recently, chances are you’ve been inundated by anti-obesity ads that are plastered on the city’s buses, subway cars and buildings. But while the New York City government is encouraging its more than 8 million residents to stop being so unhealthy, taxpayers throughout the country are paying for it.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), headed by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, has used $650 million in funds from the Recovery Act to pay for an anti-obesity program called Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW). The program is carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a federal agency under HHS.

So far, the initiative has doled out grants to 31 states and cities, including the District of Columbia. New York City got one of the largest grants– $31.1 million. Of that, $15.5 million was allotted for anti-obesity efforts, or what the Recovery.gov website calls “interventions,” and $15.6 million for anti-smoking campaigns.

[AceRimmer]

Yet another reason why I'll never go to New York City, ever.

[pollyannaish]

Yelling at people from signs is so effective.

 

In fact, that very yelling is what made me a conservative. I was a college-influenced liberal and we'd worked very hard to buy a new car that was reliable and had better gas mileage. We had to commute to a city 50 miles from where we lived to work at minimum wage jobs because the economy was tight at the time.

 

We were in Seattle, and there was a series of billboards that read "Did you buy a new car lately? Some people can't even afford food." There were others along those lines. I thought "How dare they make me feel guilty for scraping the money together to get something that I earned under difficult circumstances."

 

And ta-da! A conservative was born. So I say keep preaching at the folks...all it will do is make more and more of us ticked off at better-than-thou busybodies who think they have the right to run everyone else's lives.