Health Minister in Norway Says People Should Be Left Alone to Smoke, Drink and Eat Red Meat. Sign Me Up.

Source – Norway’s newly appointed health minister has caused controversy by saying people should be allowed to eat, smoke and drink “as much as they want”.

Sylvi Listhaug also said smokers were made to feel like pariahs.

A populist politician with anti-immigration views, she was appointed as the new health minister on Friday, a year after being forced to quit over a security row.

Critics say she has little understanding of what public health is. …

“My starting point for this with public health is very simple. I do not plan to be the moral police, and will not tell people how to live their lives, but I intend to help people get information that forms the basis for making choices,” she told Norwegian broadcaster NRK in an interview on Monday.

“People should be allowed to smoke, drink and eat as much red meat as much as they want. The authorities may like to inform, but people know pretty much what is healthy and what is not healthy, I think.”

Sylvi Listhaug, where have you been all my life?

First of all, I can’t believe Norway beat Trump to the punch and hired her first, but I’m sure once he hears about this, he’s found his new Surgeon General. Because you know that even as a non-smoker, non-drinker but a guy who eats KFC by the bucket and burgers with many, many french fries:

… is all about that living that Lusthaug life.

I know I am. She had me at “hello.” To be more specific, at “Hello. I do not plan to be the moral police.” I mean, what do we really want out of a health professional anyway? Sound advice? Medically responsible guidelines? Scientific, health-based research? Or tacit endorsement of all our behaviors so we can indulge ourselves with the governmental approval?

Think about it. If you had a choice of primary care doctors where one starts bugging you to change all your terrible habits and the other starts in about how smokers get treated like dirt and you should be allowed to smoke, eat and eat as much red meat as they want, who are you signing up for? Because you can have Dr. Judgey McNaggypants. I’m going with Dr. Spaceman:

You only live once. So bring me that sweet, sweet indulgence. My girl Silvi is telling her people to light them if they got them, bottoms up and enjoy that prime rib. To basically live like Fat Thor in New Asgard. And I am all in. Cheers!