Fight obesity like tobacco

[Mustardseedmama]

And parents of obese children should be targeted for advice on healthy eating, support and even phycological treatment to try to overcome the reasons for over eating. This is a public health issue and things should be in place to help overweight families.

EDIT: The safety or otherwise of cannabis is still a matter of considerable debate. I'm not sure bringing it up in this thread is entirely relevant, but certainly in the days of my youth when I indulged I seem to recall it bringing on considerable craving for Hobnob biscuits, kebabs, chocolate, processed cheese and all manner of wildly unhealthy crap. I don't recall ever munching my way through a couple of pounds of apples. From a dietary standpoint, dope is a disaster

Eh hem,....I seem to recall it bringing on late night pizza deliveries and mad dashes down to the local Chinese take out place. I also vaguely remember something about a quart of M&Ms and three bags of microwave popcorn....

[MKG]

No amount of public education or allowing totally unqualified people a say in things they don't understand is going to change the reality of the situation. Some people have medical conditions which cause obesity, but the massive (see what I did there?) majority of obese people are as they are because they CHOOSE to overstuff themselves with crap on a regular basis. It doesn't matter why they choose this course, whether they're lazy, undereducated, thick (did it again!) or whatever, they are exercising their right of choice. And given a market of that size (and again!) some company or other is going to satisfy demand, or even create a demand (and yes, boboff, advertising works. It may not work on you, but there's an awful lot of money spent on it if it isn't effective).

Government is not there to limit choice or to pass the buck onto a teacher or two. What it CAN do is attack the problem at source. No food company is allowed to add illegal drugs to its product to enhance its "likeability". Why, then, they're allowed to add damaging sweeteners to do the same thing is a puzzle. That's where the job of Governnment is - outlaw the practice, leave choice alone. People who really want to can always add a half-pound of sugar to their can of soup. They can even buy HFCS if they want to and add it themselves. Except they probably won't be able to read the instructions.

Anyway, that would mean most obesity was voluntary. Then we could line up all of those people and put them together with smokers, drinkers, drivers, etc. - you know, the kind of people who willingly damage themselves, others, or the environment. Oh, and addicts. And stoopid people and airline passengers and banana eaters and users of Japanese technology (except for the Japanese, but I'll get them for something else) and salesmen and advertising workers and anyone who works in a supermarket and anyone who shops in a supermarket and anyone who thinks bovine TB is caused by badgers and those who set their central heating to 20 degrees and pinko liberals and fascist conservatives and creationists and anyone else of a religious persuasion and people who post tirades on internet sites. Oh ...

Mike

EDIT: ... and ex-cannabis smokers

[merlin]

Whereas here you need to have been thrashed at the right school,belong to the right club,and have political opinons somewhere to the right of Kublai Khan.

Lol

[demi]

No amount of public education or allowing totally unqualified people a say in things they don't understand is going to change the reality of the situation. Some people have medical conditions which cause obesity, but the massive (see what I did there?) majority of obese people are as they are because they CHOOSE to overstuff themselves with crap on a regular basis. It doesn't matter why they choose this course, whether they're lazy, undereducated, thick (did it again!) or whatever, they are exercising their right of choice. And given a market of that size (and again!) some company or other is going to satisfy demand, or even create a demand (and yes, boboff, advertising works. It may not work on you, but there's an awful lot of money spent on it if it isn't effective).

Government is not there to limit choice or to pass the buck onto a teacher or two. What it CAN do is attack the problem at source. No food company is allowed to add illegal drugs to its product to enhance its "likeability". Why, then, they're allowed to add damaging sweeteners to do the same thing is a puzzle. That's where the job of Governnment is - outlaw the practice, leave choice alone. People who really want to can always add a half-pound of sugar to their can of soup. They can even buy HFCS if they want to and add it themselves. Except they probably won't be able to read the instructions.

Anyway, that would mean most obesity was voluntary. Then we could line up all of those people and put them together with smokers, drinkers, drivers, etc. - you know, the kind of people who willingly damage themselves, others, or the environment. Oh, and addicts. And stoopid people and airline passengers and banana eaters and users of Japanese technology (except for the Japanese, but I'll get them for something else) and salesmen and advertising workers and anyone who works in a supermarket and anyone who shops in a supermarket and anyone who thinks bovine TB is caused by badgers and those who set their central heating to 20 degrees and pinko liberals and fascist conservatives and creationists and anyone else of a religious persuasion and people who post tirades on internet sites. Oh ...

Mike

EDIT: ... and ex-cannabis smokers

I eat too much and smoke too much weed. I need help. I'm currently stoned and eating pizza for breakfast as im typing this, im holding a slice im my teeth so my hands are free to type.

[wabbit955]

educating people to eat the right food will never work while supermarkets offer cheep unheathly food on buy one get one free offers
band this and we might start getting some were
i am on of 4 kids and parents never had no money brought up on things like spam and mince beef but was always served with lots of cheep veg yes mum always had cheep biscults in the cupboard but we were only ever allowed 3 after dinner
people who say they can not afford good food may be right but not so good food served in the right ratios works pretty well we 4 kids were always a heathly weight.
i have to boys now 12 and 14 and are the total oppisits boy thats 14 is very skinny bmi just in the under wieght line but he dose not stop eating
12year old eats less than the older boy exercizing more and has a bmi on the line of over weight
so it not just what you feed children.
we always eat fresh prepared food and never buy fizzy drinks, biscults or sweets they do get if we go out but as a treat not the normal i am a single parent and work 54 hours a week and there is alway time to cook good food even if its big batches at the weekend and heated up in the week
"so band super markets and ready meals the health will return"
arrrrrrr if that would happen

[merlin]

[quote="MKG"]No amount of public education or allowing totally unqualified people a say in things they don't understand is going to change the reality of the situation. Some people have medical conditions which cause obesity, but the massive (see what I did there?) majority of obese people are as they are because they CHOOSE to overstuff themselves with crap on a regular basis. It doesn't matter why they choose this course, whether they're lazy, undereducated, thick (did it again!) or whatever, they are exercising their right of choice.

I totally agree, it effects me not a jot what grown ups do to themselves, just think there should some legal tools to make sure it doesn’t happen to the children they are looking after.

Some people have not received sufficient education or life skills to realise that they are not helping themselves by eating certain foods to excess, so I am not saying for one moment that the authorities should swoop in and fine them or whatever. I just think that once it is obvious that a child is in this situation, the authorities ought to be able to approach the parents or carers and lend a helping hand by making available some free education to help them and their children.

After that, if they don’t comply, fine them. That’s what they do if you don’t tax your car, it works!

Of course, cars are much more important, like council tax, miss a payment or two and the wheels are in motion, but needlessly shortening a life through pure laziness…….

[gregorach]

Government is not there to limit choice or to pass the buck onto a teacher or two. What it CAN do is attack the problem at source. No food company is allowed to add illegal drugs to its product to enhance its "likeability". Why, then, they're allowed to add damaging sweeteners to do the same thing is a puzzle. That's where the job of Governnment is - outlaw the practice, leave choice alone.

That about sums up my thinking on the matter... People like to imagine that their choices are entirely their own, but I really don't think companies spend billions of pounds on marketing, and on developing "better selling" recipes just for the fun of it. The truth is that advertising works, and you can engineer food to be highly addictive. The junk food industry is basically dealing crack and advertising it on kids TV.

[boboff]

No its not.

Dealing Crack? Yeah right.

As for the intervention Merlin mentions, I have kids in school, and this happens.

Marketing is highlighting a products strengths to fullfill a need in the consumer, marketing to kids is difficult as they have little chance of making informed decisions, that why kids have parents.

It's so disapointing that we choose to rant about high fat, processed food, that tastes good, blaming these things called business' for making a profit, fullfilling a need, providing jobs, paying tax, investment returns for pensions etc, for all the ill's in society, rather than perhaps say looking at the people who actually ARE dealing crack, those lazy ill educated junk food eating degenerates all stoned on Dope actually peddaling death to our children.............

Sake.

[oldjerry]

almost found meself agreeing with you ,Boboff,but it's OK I've had a little lie down.! What you're picking up on is Dunc's use of hyperbole,something which both you and I do all the time,the underlying point is undeniable.

[gregorach]

Just stick "food addiction" into Google Scholar and see what it comes up with...

[Green Aura]

Do they pay tax, boboff? Not so many, or so much apparently.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I don't think that there is any doubt that food manufacturers seek out physiological and psychological buttons to push when they concoct new recipes. They've certainly spent enough time and money researching them. Whether foodstuffs can truly be said to be addictive in the sense that crack is, I couldn't say, though I've heard tell of people claiming withdrawal symptoms when deprived of chocolate and similar.

The difficulty in "banning" ingredients is that practically no ingredient is generally harmful in moderation, even stuff like high fructose corn syrup or palm oil. It could be argued that they are potentially so damaging to health that they should be withdrawn, particularly as healthier alternatives are available. But these are generally more expensive, so there will undoubtedly be resistance to doing this, as there would be to imposing a "fat tax." Compelling manufacturers to label prominently (on the front, big letters, bright colours, skull & cross bones, etc) where food contains high levels of salt, palm oil, HFCS, and so on would help. Maybe even go to the extent of requiring a health warning of some kind similar to those being put on booze.

[gregorach]

Yeah, I'm not generally in favour of banning things, but I think there is scope to look at how we regulate the sale and marketing of them.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Yeah, I'm not generally in favour of banning things, but I think there is scope to look at how we regulate the sale and marketing of them.

I think you're entirely right.

There's a long and fascinating history of food adulteration that has gone on pretty much through the entire course of civilisation - wine adulterated with lead acetate to sweeten it, bread flour with alum, tea with ash leaves and so on.

It might seem hard to believe that there could be any money in doing it these days (though some people might argue that what processed food manufacturers do is adulteration - hell, I might argue that after a couple of drinks, come to think of it) but there is.

At the moment, most of the trade is in condemned meat going into things like low cost late night burgers and kebabs, but it is not so far-fetched to imagine a scenario where that same meat was encased in pastry made using "banned" - and subsequently very cheap - palm oil.

Banning things not infrequently makes the damage they inflict worse: educating them out of circulation is often better.

[boboff]

Having actually worked in Food Manufacturing, and having spent a great deal of time with Supermarket Food Technologists, and undertaking Research programs with Internationally reknowned research agencies, I know you guys are talking utter garbish. I don't need Google to tell me a load on cheap unproven facts. I know for real and for sure.

Your negative "hyperbolic stance" on all things corportate is a bit boring really, but I understand you take Citizen Smith as your role model, so can laugh at you all with a sence of patronisation a School Maam would be proud of.

What more can we do as a nation, we have the most stringent food regulations in the world, 99% of food MUST include ingredients, and a statement showing what % of the RDA of each main component of the food is, what more regulation can you need? Oh yeah from 2014 all food will need a traffic light on the front, showing Red = Bad, Amber = Watch it, Green = Good, just to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator.

Oh and as for tax, we have such good freedom of information we know the ones that don't pay CORPORATION tax in this country, but they still collect VAT, pay 12% Emlpoyers National Insurance, business rates, PAYE and provide a service. Dividends they pay they have to pay Tax on, on behalf of the investors also, so please don't think what the BBC says on the subject is even 1/3 of the facts of the matter. They could pay more tax, sure, but if they have the choice to pay 2% in Switzerland, or 25% here, if it was your money, and it was legal, where would you pay it?

Anyway, we do not agree on these any many other things, as I think we have different inherant beliefs, but we all like Gardening, which is nice, and we all like eating fresh fruit and veg, homegrown meat, and being outdoors and healthy, what I don't like is that some how this makes us superior and virtuous, I can't accept that condescention of the British collection intelligence, but admit I am almost certainly deluded in that assumption.