Max, ever the contented one. I guess you are going to home school your kids so you won't have to worry about the coke and junk food.
This line just keeps cracking me up. What exactly is bad about GM vegetables? I'm sure genetically modified foods that can grow in the worst conditions could be helpful to say Africa and any place that needs famine relief.
I don't blame everyone else for my diet. My diet sucks and it's my fault. As for school lunches...that's entirely different. And not at all the crux of your original argument here. Everyone who owns a dining establishment is part of the pro-obesity clan. They all have profit motive in you eating more and more. They're all out to get you, glynch.
What kinds of limits would you suggest? And would you limit it to the pro-obesity agenda? Or would it also apply to the out-of-control weight-loss industry too? What about the health foods industry, which also promotes their products to enhance profits?
There's something y'all aren't getting here. It's not just about pushing people to eat more, and therefore they're eating a lot of food and getting fat. This is about trans-fatty acids, pesticides, hormones, and all kinds of scary chemicals that are harmful to your health. This is stuff that is bad for you when eaten at all. Many of these things can be reduced and replaced without great cost to the industry, but the industry fights regulation so hard and has such strong lobbying ties to republicans nothing can get done.
maybe we're not "getting it" because there's nothing about that in the article, at all. the article is about obesity. no more; no less.
How about: Nutritional information readily available in an understandable format. If I choose to get the double double lard burger, I should at aware as to how bad it is for me . The 'healthiness' of the selections should be available so I can choose whether the healthier option is what I want. You'd be surprised at foods that seem good for you, are actually terrible. Ever read the label of fruit juices lately? They're often NOT a healthy choice. Better nutritional requirements for school lunch programs. As to health foods and the 'out-of-contol' weight loss industry (is there an epidemic of people losing weight? I didn't know), again better available information. And penalties of misleading info. Not all 'health food' is healthy. Or the same. Organic standards and labelling requirements are a start. Nutritional info is a must. Just because they label it 'green' doesn't mean it is! And similar for the weight loss programs and supplements. What's in them? Are there side effects? Do they work? If a program suggests you'll lose X pounds in Y weeks, they should have a basis for that. Have people actually done that? Truth in advertising! I'm all for the corps making as much money as they can selling food or whatever. Nothing wrong with enhansing profits. But they shouldn't mislead. And consumers should be informed. And if milk or beef in injected with growth hormones, I want to know. And maybe i'll buy the product that isn't. And pay more. Eating healthy, organic, locally sourced food shouldn't be difficult. But we need labelling laws to help us make those choices. And educational programs to let us know what's good for us. It's important.
Oh..and one more thing. Democrats and liberals are no better at this than Republicans and conservatives. Clinton wasn't exactly a shining example of healthy eating, was he. And they're as whipped by the food lobby as the GOP.
I'm not arguing against any of this - more information being available would be good ... but glynch's first post was asking people if the obesity-lobbies should be restricted in anyway. I'm curious what kinds of restrictions he had in mind on the lobbies, not the end result laws.
I see it as the same thing. If the 'lobbies' are going to advertise telling you how wonderful their food is...they should include a disclaimer about the health effects. No different than alcohol or cigarette ads, really. Whether the lobby itself should be restricted? Same issues, i guess as any other lobby. No reason to single them out.
You need sensible regulation. You can't just wait till corporations can find a way to maximize profits in the next quarter till you make some progress. Complicating this is the ability of the corporations to essentially overwhelm science knowlege with their pr. We see the same thing with global warming and many other issues. If through overwhelmig false propaganda, the public doesn' t even know what they are buying or the alternatives, I don't think you can just trust consumer choice when there is such a great incentive for the corporations to lie in order to maximize short term profit. We have laws like truth in lending and regulations on phony drug claims etc. The industry fought nutrition labeling for years, which perhaps is even now accepted by the bigtexx type of conservatives. Someone mentioned corn as a problem. This is very true. American corn syrup and corn is perhaps the cheapest food stuff known to mankind. In addition it tastes pretty good. An entire processed food industry has arisen which attempts to put it into every food possible to maximize profits. In addition I believe we pays billions of dollars per year to encourage farmers to grow more corn. Why?
It seems to me that this ties in with the pro-mj issue. I think the only regulations that should be imposed are those that would prmote the disemination of informationto the consumer. Even then, i doubt that perfectly informed consumers would change their eating habits that much. All (or most?) of us here know that fast food is bad for us. A lot of us here know that mj is bad for us. A lot of us still exercise the freedom consume these products knwoing that they have a detrimental effect on our health. I know the bacon-cheesburger is bad for me. I still order it on occasion. We can blame the "big corportions" all we want. They are hardly paragons of moral virtue. If false advertising can be proved, then punishments should ensue. However, I think here we would be trying to change the dietary behavior of a large segment of the population. The biggest culprit here is the fat guy stuffing fries in his piehole or the parent who stuffs the fries in their kiddies' piehole.
Corporations are out to make money, they feed us what sells the best. They are not TRYING to make us obese, they are simply catering to our wants. If there was a demand for a healthy McTofu restaurant, you don't think McDonalds would open in up in half a second?? The fact is that liberals seem to be up in arms because things like smoking, eating greasy food etc all cause healthcare costs to rise. And they want government controlled healthcare. The more government control in healthcare the more you will see the government limiting freedom unless they deem it within their guidelines. Can't wait till they limit the number of kids a family can have or have a tax on it. If you have private healthcare then don't worry about your freedom of lifestyle being taken away.
And to not be hypocritical, I don't believe the government should stop individuals from taking illegal drugs or prostitution. If someone wants to do drugs or sell their body, its their own issue. But the government shouldn't have to pay for rehab for druggies or expenses for STD or Aids as they are either.
Well, health care corporations are just out to make money. They have no incentive to stop people from eating junk food; in fact they make more the more junk food peopkle eat. They make money on doing angioplasties, heart by-passes, total knees and hips etc. and obesity surgery. They aren't out to make you obese or have your arteries clog, just out to make money. All is cool per Khan. If you can stretch your mind enough to think outsidc the the market is always right ideoology, what is so bad with having at least one large organization, i.e. the government having a big incentive to keep those arteries clean and obesity down.? Granted people should excercise personal repsonsibility, but isn't it good to have a large organized entity with the incentive to publicize this?
Bingo! Speaking of government... corn is probably one of the most subsidized crops out there. So, you could argue that the government is subsidizing obesity. I think people should eat what they want and suffer the consequences. Eat healthy and be healthy... or not. Not to hijack the thread but this is why I don't think Government health care would work. The only way to make it financially feasable would be for the Government to dictate what you ate and how much you exercised (not to mention whether you could do dangerous things like Skydive or drive cars). I don't see how the costs could be kept in line if you could live as unhealthally (sp?) as you wanted because you knew the government would just fix whatever ailed you for free. Just MHO, of course.
i find this type of argument against socialized medicine curious. do you like going to the doctor? do you want to be unhealthy and obese? do you think others do? seriously
I don't worry about processed foods, pesticides, or genetically or techonoligcally developed foods. It hasn't been proven that these things are actually bad for you. The stuff is low fat, the wheat bread is healthy, and I get vegetables on my sandwich. I don't get cheese. I get a diet coke and baked Lay's to go with it. As far as school cafeteria food, I never had a problem not eating it. I usually would take my own sandwich and I would rarely buy dessert.
