Nanny state bureaucrats are dangling carrots to lure hungry low-income women, children and refugees in to their social experiment.
Thanks to nanny state bureaucrats in upper New England, low-income children are receiving a healthy dose of free fruit and vegetables, courtesy of taxpayers. The food giveaway isn’t exactly without cost as kids who accept produce vouchers from their doctors will automatically be enrolled in a program that monitors the effects of fruits and vegetables on their health.
The program is the brainchild of Connecticut-based Wholesome Wave, a non-profit organization dedicated to “nourishing neighborhoods across America.” Health care providers in Massachusetts and Maine will offer young at-risk patients vouchers worth $1 per day to boost their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables harvested by local farmers in an effort to find the cure for the so-called obesity ‘epidemic.’
Participants in the program will receive ongoing monitoring by their physicians to measure “how the fresh produce affects blood pressure, weight and body mass index; blood-sugar levels; and participants’ weight,” while also collecting data on patients’ “physical activity.”
Funding for the initiative in Massachusettes will be provided by Wholesome Wave and matched by the state Department of Agricultural Resources and Wellesley-based the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, The Associated Press reports, though no indications were made with regards to the State of Maine’s use of taxpayer money to fund this social experiment.
Membership in this program is “based on the level of obesity in the family, financial limitations that serve as a barrier to buying fresh produce, and compliance with obesity treatment protocol,” organizers told the AP. More than 100 families across Massachusetts and Maine will be targeted as test subjects within the initial year of the program.
Low income kids are not the only targets of doctors and bureaucrats eager to study the effects of fruits and vegetables on their diets. Pregnant women and foreign refugees will be studied, as well.
“What makes this program unique is the administration of prescription in the form of a fruit-and-vegetable prescription by a doctor,” Wholesome Wave Chief Operating Officer Juliette Taylor-DeVries said. “And it has tremendous positive effects on the communities because it invigorates the local economy and it provides a new revenue stream for local farmers — and access and affordability to people who do not have access to fresh healthy food.”
It’s a win-win situation for everyone, if you take out of consideration the fact that doctors and bureaucrats are using free food to lure low-income women, children and refugees in to a social experiment that they would likely shun without an incentive that means the difference between going hungry or having a steady flow of government-subsidized produce to fill their bellies.
The big question remains, what happens when the experiment runs its course and there is no more free produce for the test subjects? As with all lofty and idealistic nanny state initiatives, there’s always something big government bureaucrats fail to consider, and its the people they’ve charged themselves with ‘saving’ that ultimately get screwed in the end.
What are your thoughts on doctors and government officials baiting low income women, children and refugees with free produce to become human guinea pigs?
I’m finding it hard to find fault with this one. Feeding hungry people nutritious food, even for a little while, is good. Right?
apples are a LOT cheaper than me paying for someones diabetes medication for 40 years, which we’ll be doing with the new health care bill. So if we can keep low income families healthier, I see it as more money in my pocket.