Cholesterol Control Act of 2010

There's a line in a Quantum Leap episode I always remember. Sam is somewhere in the past, sitting at a picnic eating fried chicken. Al (the hologram who only Sam can see and hear) is in the future, circa 1999, watching Sam eat, and drooling.

"Look at that fried chicken!" says Al. "I haven't seen food like this since they passed the Cholesterol Control Act!"

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in our local Cold Stone Creamery watching my six year old eat his free birthday cone. We don't normally go there (six bucks for one ice cream? Are they kidding?), so I perused the menu. Everything sounded SO good.

Then I noticed something else.

Only one in every ten people coming in there was what I would call normal weight, that is to say they were not noticeably overweight. Everyone else was certainly in the obese category, including most of the children.

Suddenly I had a vision of the future: a scanner had been mounted over the door of the shop. As people entered, they had to stop in the scanner for a height and weight measurement. If their BMI was over 25, they were turned away.

Imagine a world where you scan your health card along with your credit card at the grocery store, and if your cholesterol is too high, you can't buy those chips. Or if there's a family history of diabetes, the candy will have to stay in the store. People will steal other people's identities - not so they can score credit cards, but so they can score cupcakes.

What a world that would be. I think I feel a science fiction short story coming on...