The National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control have announced they will give out $5 million in research grants for projects to examine “understanding the role of the built environment in causing/exacerbating obesity and related co-morbidities; and, second, developing, implementing, and evaluating prevention/intervention strategies that influence parameters of the built environment in order to reduce the prevalence of overweight, obesity and co-morbidities.” Your tax dollars at work, folks. My favorite part is the discussion of how much more of a problem obesity is where crime makes people afraid to get out and walk. So we need to study how improving the “built environment” can help save these people from getting fat. This is like suggesting we study how many calories people burn dodging bullets and running for cover. NEWS ALERT for NIH and CDC–you clowns. People who can’t go out of their house because of crime have a crime problem, not a diet problem. How about we focus our resources on that first? But no, instead we will get some nice studies about how really nice sidewalks and taxpayer funded gyms in central cities will sweat away the obesity health crisis.