Just in time for the holidays in which many of us gorge ourselves on turkey and stuffing, a new movement has emerged to battle the bulge.

According to the Dallas Morning News, "the politics of obesity is sizzling... . The movement is being waged from the state house to Capitol Hill and from the restaurant counter to the government's most sophisticated health agencies."

Some of the legislative ideas being kicked around include proposals to mandate nutrition labels on restaurant menus, improving school lunch programs and the imposition of taxes on high-calorie, low-nutrition food items.

One of the tragic ironies in all this is that, while one in five Americans are obese, millions of children are going hungry everyday in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known.

But the movement to end hunger as we know it isn't getting the kind of political attention that obesity is getting. Why?

Perhaps it's because in our individualistic society obsessed with self-help, personal fitness, and individual blame we see fatness as primarily an issue of personal responsibility, whereas hunger raises more difficult systemic questions about a "free-market" economy in which many people have the freedom to choose between paying bills or going hungry - not exactly the kind of "freedom" that gets you all choked up and wanna wave flags in a show of patriotism.

Needless to say, whether it's the obesity epidemic dis-easing middle-class Americans or the moral scandal of malnutrition among the nation's poor - both have serious financial implications for our health care system, which is why I find this "compromise" Medicare bill so interesting.

With so many of us leading unhealthy lives, whether by choice or circumstance, our health care system is going to be put to the test.

Now, about this Medicare bill. Once you get beyond the window dressing arranged to appear as if our political leaders are truly compassionate, consider what's beneath the surface before offering your political Thanksgivings. In the process you may discover who the real fat cats are.

You might start with Gail Shearer, senior health policy analyst for the Consumers Union and author of the recently released report, "Medicare Prescription Drugs: Conference Committee Agreement Asks Beneficiaries to Pay Too High a Price for Modest Benefit." Among Shearer's findings:

• "The funds set aside for this 'benefit' - $400 billion over 10 years - cover just 22 percent of the anticipated drug costs, leaving consumers to foot the rest of the bill."

• "Medicare is being moved down the road to privatization by requiring competition between private health plans and Medicare."

• "Private Pharmacy Benefit Managers get to pick what drugs are covered under the plan, with no transparency, methodology or public accountability. This means patients who are sensitive to the choice of drug will be out of luck if their needed drug is not on the plan."

• The deal "actually prohibits the government from negotiating deep prescription drug discounts for consumers, meaning the average Medicare beneficiary will pay more out-of-pocket for drugs in 2007 when the benefit begins, than what they currently pay now without the 'benefit'."

Yeah, America has an obesity problem, or rather a greed problem, if we're being honest. Maybe we could all get a little exercise by marching on Washington - the heart of the problem - and demand economic justice, which is exactly why those young folks were protesting down in Miami.

I know that those whose sensibilities are offended by street protests consider young people like myself to be rebels without a cause. But look at it this way: Running from the riot police will probably trim a few pounds off our lazy duffs and thus help fight obesity in America.

Let people eat what they want. It's the appetite of fat cats eating away America's future that needs to be reigned in.

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and a syndicated columnist.

Copyright © 2003 Cape Cod Times

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