On the eve of a statewide smoking ban that will go into effect in February, Maryland legislators are now deliberating even more regulation aimed at “protecting us from ourselves.”

Del. James Hubbard, D-Prince George’s County, has proposed legislation to ban trans fats in restaurants throughout the state. As you might have guessed, it’s “for the children.” As Hubbard told the Baltimore Sun, “All those kids out there who are eating french fries and other fried foods; they’re starting to clog their arteries at a young age.”

Agreed, Mr. Hubbard. But they’re also starting to partake in many activities — using stairs, riding bicycles, skateboarding, playing football, swimming, driving, dating — that undoubtedly pose significant health risks. Should we strap helmets on our kids and confine them to padded rooms all day long too?

Trans fat is a tasty type of unsaturated fat, a partially hydrogenated oil that has only most recently become the politically incorrect target of the anti-fat, anti-fun food police. So perhaps it’s fitting that Del. Hubbard is a former Prince George’s County assistant sheriff, but it would behoove us to understand why trans fats are even an issue today.

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Many of us are old enough to remember when saturated fats were supposedly the devil due to their ostensible connection to heart disease. During the 1980s, the Center for Science in the Public Interest successfully pressured fast-food restaurants and food companies to stop frying with beef fat and tropical oils. According to nutritionist Mary G. Enig, CSPI actually defended trans fats at the time, but once medical reports began linking them to heart disease too, the organization then hypocritically criticized food providers “for doing what CSPI coerced them into doing, namely, using partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in their deep fat fryers.”

Laughably, today CSPI laments the fact that trans fat regulations and bans are leading to greater imports of palm oil — a saturated fat considered wicked just a couple of decades ago — as food manufacturers seek alternatives to hydrogenated oil, the effects of which include endangering rain forest habitats of rhinos, elephants, tigers and orangutans as demand for new palm plantations rises.

Given this information, it’s reasonable to believe that so-called nutrition activists like the folks at CSPI are just as concerned with saving face as they are with saving lives. Their actions prove that you can’t have your trans fat-soaked cake and eat it too: Every benefit has its costs. However, these costs aren’t so frivolous to many poor countries, whose families have endured sharp price increases for cooking oils as a result of U.S. regulation of the food industry.

In fact, the New York Times reported recently that “American palm oil imports nearly doubled in the first 11 months of last year, rising by 200,000 tons,” noting that while soaring market prices may be perceived as trivial in the West, “cooking oil is an important source of calories” in the developing world “and represents one of the biggest cash outlays for poor families.”

Trans fats may not be as healthy as natural oils, but they are relatively inexpensive. Repercussions for underdeveloped nations aside, how will Maryland Democrats reconcile higher food prices with their supposed concern for poor families, on whom these increased costs will disproportionately fall?

Much like Maryland’s anti-smoking law, one suspects the trans fat bill will be defended with the argument that the state will face unnecessary public health care costs if people are allowed to eat foods thought to be associated with disease.

But that outlook is a problem of socialism, not fatty foods.

If Maryland politicians truly cared about children, they would scrap Hubbard’s bill, which would do little more than continue to raise food prices on kids from Baltimore to Bangladesh.

Trevor Bothwell blogs at Who’s Your Nanny? and is author of the cookbook “50 Ways to Impress Your Girlfriend’s Parents.”