[OldDave]

Ed, an interesting post. (and I have greatly enjoyed and appreciated a number of comments you've made in several threads the past few days.) You are correct we've gone from a smoking world with a few non smokers to a non smoking world with a few smokers. And while in the 80s smokers were militant about their rights to smoke anywhere they wanted, the ones I know now generally wish they could stop but a really addicted. But they never try to force themselves on anyone. As you said many will not even smoke in their own home. When we were at TV in June we rented a house with a pool. Every time we were in the pool we would see the neighboors next door come out and smoke on their lanai.

I am really intrigued by your thought that we could stop obesity like we stopped smoking. I had never thought of that. I certainly think it is our biggest (no pun intended) health problem. You know New York has outlawed larger drinks and a few things like that but mostly get made fun of on Letterman. I have seen that McDonalds and other fast food places had to back off of the super sizing of everything, although they didn't back off far. All drinks are still a dollar at McDonalds, which implies "go ahead and get the huge one its the same price." By the way McDonalds sell senior drinks. Here it is 40 cents for a senior Coke, which is the "small" size, which is by no means small. As we found on our drive down and back prices vary around the country.

I think it really would take something global to stop this. Close drive throughs. Stop allowing schools to serve burgers, fried, pizza, etc. Ban any form of all your can eat restaurant. I cannot imagine how this could happen, but we are killing ourselves in this country at a faster rate than any other country, it seems.