According to data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control, fewer Americans are becoming obese, but the ones who already are overweight are getting fatter.

That's reason enough for some nanny staters to promote government pigging out on a plethora of public policies aimed at reducing our waistlines.

The CDC says that a third of U.S. adults are obese, and that number is expected to climb to 42 percent by 2030. But that increase is less than what experts predicted back when obesity rates began accelerating 20 or more years ago. That's the good news.

The bad news is that severe obesity — the number of adults who are 100 pounds or more overweight — is expected to double by 2030. That, researchers said, will put additional financial strains on the nation's health care system.

And when so much of health care spending already is socialized, those costs become everyone's concerns.

Thus, a report released Tuesday by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that seeks to make the United States less "obesogenic."

You see, it's not your fault that your pants are tighter than a 10-pound sausage in a 5-pound casing. The IOM instead blames society for providing too many negative influences and too few choices to improve your life.

The IOM provides a smorgasbord of social engineering: tax incentives to developers for building sidewalks in neighborhoods, so as to encourage people to walk (exercise) more; taxing sugar-sweetened beverages; making healthy food and drinks more available everywhere, from shopping centers and chain restaurants to the workplace; and on an on.

The IOM complains that too little U.S. farmland is dedicated to growing fruits and vegetables; therefore, there is insufficient supply to provide every American with the recommended intake. That assumes, of course, that if the supply were increased, demand would concurrently follow.

That flawed supposition is at the heart of the IOM strategy. In reality, healthy choices abound. Check the menus at McDonald's or Wendy's, which offer salads and wraps that are lower in fat and calories than the traditional fast-food fare. Government already requires more detailed nutritional information on restaurant menus and packaged foods.

The New York Times reported last month that studies indicate that, contrary to many policy makers and advocates, poor neighborhoods are not "food deserts" that are bereft of fresh produce. These urban areas do have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but they also have more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. Also, there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

What bothers the fat police is that too many Americans are making choices that run counter to what the experts want them to make. Most people know what's healthy and what isn't, and have access to a range of foods. Many simply choose to eat the "bad" stuff.

Nanny staters, frustrated that their nudging and prodding aren't working — or working fast enough — resort to more coercive means of getting their preferred results. More regulation opens the door to increased special-interest lobbying. Government choosing food "winners" and "losers" would stifle innovation. Consumers would wind up having fewer choices, not more.

If you are what you eat, then this force-fed spread of hard-to-swallow policies would turn us into drones.

REPRINTED FROM THE PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD