Are smoking and overeating bad? Depends who you ask

Want to help our struggling economy? Give the government a break on health care costs? Start smoking! Become obese!

Really. A new study shows that, contrary to popular belief, smokers and those who are obese actually cost the government less than healthy, skinny people. It doesn't take a scientist to figure out why, though. Healthy people who eat all their vegetables live longer. (Okay, the people doing the study did not actually say that part about the vegetables, but you KNOW that's what they mean. They are always pushing the vegetables.) The longer you live, the more things that can go wrong, healthwise anyway. And so the more society racks up costs in fixing those things that go wrong with you.

The study did find that health costs for healthy, skinny people are lower from ages 20 to 56. But over the long haul, those people consuming all their leafy greens and doing their 30 minutes of exercise a day are a real drain on the health care system.

Sure, this study was done in the Netherlands, but according to the law of transatlantic fatty acids, it applies to us here in the U.S. as well. This really puts a damper on people who make their living telling other people to get in better shape and eat their vegetables. Pity the dietitians, the public health and school nurses, the Surgeon General! Smokers and people who are obese are going to be thumbing their noses at them.

And let's hope this bit of news doesn't get into the hands of our presidential candidates. At least one of them is bound to start espousing some new health care reform that goes something like this: Encourage people to be healthy until they're 56 (through force-feeding and mandatory exercise, if necessary), and then start throwing cigarettes and saturated fat at them to try to knock some years off their life (and, more importantly, money off the nation's health care costs.)

In fact, one of your more liberal candidates, for instance Mr. Huckabee, might even suggest raising the smoking age to 56. The candidate might also propose some incentives to get people to start smoking at that point, paint a grim picture of health care going bankrupt, and throw in a senior discount for cigarettes, and before you know it people will be convinced that it is their patriotic duty to start smoking.

And nutrition? I envision there being two food pyramids, based on age: the one currently in use, for people up to age 56; the other, for 57 until checkout, will be filled with from top to bottom with chocolate.

I know where my patriotic duty lies.