Bill to ban overweight patrons from buffets fails in Mississippi

The Mississippi legislature considered a bill this session that would have barred restaurants from serving obese people.

House Bill No. 282, sponsored by Rep. W.T. Mayhall Jr., would have revoked the health department licenses of restaurants that repeatedly sold food to customers with an excessive body-mass index.

Mayhall said overweight Mississippians are driving up the state’s Medicaid costs. “No one’s doing anything about it,” he complained. “They just keep on going to the buffets and eating.”

Fellow legislators let the bill die in committee.

“I’ve seen a lot of crazy laws, but this one takes the cake – literally,” said J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom.

And the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog noted that the bill would have significantly harmed Mississippi’s highly competitive fast-food industry by taking away “a very large portion of their customer base.”

Source: The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger