No, not an April Fool’s joke.

Big Brother Is Watching You Eat — Reason

Just how far is the federal government willing to go to push Americans to make subjectively “healthy” food choices? Chillingly far, if the most recent meeting of the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) is any indicator.

The DGAC is made up of fifteen academics, culled mainly from the fields of nutrition, public health, and medicine. The role of the DGAC, which has met every five years for more than two decades, is to come up with recommendations that can be used “to help people choose an overall healthy diet that works for them.” […]

One of the most nefarious things I’ve seen about the DGAC recommendations so far is the suggestion that the government involve itself in the lives of obese people by sending them regular text messages. (I’ve dubbed this this the DGAC’s “Chubby Checkers” program.)

This texting—and the data collection necessary to facilitate it—could be an unprecedented intrusion of government into the daily lives of Americans. It flies in the face of food freedom.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Elizabeth Harrington reported last week that NIH had spent nearly $3,000,000 in recent years to fund studies looking into the possibility of using text messages and web tools to treat obesity.

That sort of Big Government intrusion into your mobile phone might strike you as outrageous. But that’s not even the half of it.