New Atlantic piece: Government, help us fight fat!

Keeping with my recent "Japan" theme, I have a piece up at the Atlantic about one thing that Japan undeniably does better than us: Fighting fat. The upshot:

Government paternalism is in some sense a last resort, but it has worked wonders in the realm of public health in the past. Hand-washing regulations, sewage treatment regulations, cleanliness education, and other such paternalistic initiatives brought us out of the cesspool of the Middle Ages into the clean, safe, mostly disease-free paradise in which we now reside. Fat, though not contagious, is no different in terms of its ability to cripple and kill our citizenry, and the epidemic has reached emergency proportions... 

The American people must become healthy again. It's time to bring in the government.

Check out the whole thing!