Calgary has just proclaimed itself No. 1, and not because the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup. Rather, it's because it's the first city in Canada to have a "bariatric response team." This is not an elite anti-terror squad; it's trained paramedics with a $30,000 mechanical system to lift morbidly obese patients onto a stretcher.

It appears that hell will freeze over before consumers realize the tragedy of obesity and stop purchasing these foods -- and fast foods. Fast foods have become far too ingrained in our lifestyles. And everything has become supersize. Or in restaurants, it's "all-you-can-eat" night. Temptations to eat excessively abound. Is this going to change?

So I'm not being facetious when I suggest it would take a famine to fight the obesity epidemic. And there's one point no one mentions about $30,000 mechanical lifts: They simply deposit obese patients in the hospital. Then what?