by Nick Gillespie

On the off chance that you want to escape, however briefly, from uncomfortable double-entendre, Three's Company-quality headlines such as "Ex-FBI director won't probe congressional page system," chew on a different sort of moral panic involving youth, uncontrolled appetites, and lots of heavy breathing.

"1 in 3 American youngsters are physically unfit," concludes a study just published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. The study subjected more than 3,000 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 19 to a 10-minute treadmill test and found what any trip to a municipal pool could have told you: that "approximately one third of males and females...failed to meet current standards of acceptable cardiorespiratory endurance." As Reuters summarized, "fatness and sedentary lifestyles are likely culprits." In noting that about 15 percent of today's kids are obese, the American Obesity Association concurs, laying it on as thick as a Fluffernutter and Nutella sandwich: "Today's youth are considered the most inactive generation in history."

As it happens, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin, believes he has unmasked the true super-villain behind all of this and it's someone even the most clever detective never would have suspected: the gluttonous cartoon canine named Scooby-Doo, hitherto best known for crime-solving, overeating, and a cross-species personal relationship of the sort that struts through the nightmares of Rick Santorum like a Gay Pride parade through the Village.

Referring to research that suggests the average child watches up to four hours of television a day and is exposed 40,000 commercials a year (many, maybe most, of them for candy, cereal, and sodas), Martin has decreed that the FCC, which has the power to regulate content on broadcast radio and TV, will now "study links between...ads, viewing habits and the rise of childhood obesity," according to the AP.

"Small children can't weed out the marketing messages from their favorite shows," contends Martin. "Especially when the marketing campaigns feature favorite TV characters like SpongeBob or Scooby-Doo." An FCC task force, made up of "FCC officials, members of the food, television, and advertising industries" and others will start up next year and eventually report to the Senate. If past is prologue, its recommendations will suggest that the FCC increase its control over what we can see on TV and include a mix of "voluntary" and mandatory guidelines for broadcasters that will be every bit as ineffective as they are heartfelt.

But before we start computing a Body Mass Grave Index, it's worth pointing out that Martin's theory has at least a couple of holes in it every bit as oversized and indigestible as the sandwiches on which Scooby and Shaggy regularly chow down.

For starters, let's remember that "small children" don't have that much walking-around money and that they have a limited say over what, how, and when they eat; just ask them (I say that as the parent of two boys, ages five and 12). Beyond that, Martin's emphasis on fat kids misses a larger, even flabbier, picture--adults have been getting fatter at an even quicker pace. Indeed, some 65 percent of adults are now considered overweight. Are adults, too, simple pawns of SpongeBob and Scooby-Doo, or their more-mature counterparts?

Or is there a simpler explanation, and one that takes into account increases in height, weight, and longevity observed not just in America but in every developed nation (and many developing ones) over the past century: Food has been getting cheaper and more plentiful at the same time that work has been getting less physically demanding. This may not lead to the prettiest outcome at the beach, but it also may not be cause for concern (especially when one considers that the health risks of being overweight are not as super-sized as commonly believed.)

Which isn't to say that many TV watchers aren't too lazy for their own damn good. Consider what FCC Chairman Martin himself said in 2005, when testifying before Congress about the horrors of "indecency" and the need for bigger fines and regulation of cable and satellite programming (currently exempt from the FCC's oversight): "You can always turn the television off and, of course, block the channels you don't want," he said."But why should you have to?"

Nick Gillespie is the editor-in-chief of Reason.