Don’t we have enough unwinnable wars going as it is? 
(Although between you, me and the fly on the wall, I’ve been writing my Congressmen/women for years trying to get them to enact a Stupid Tax. I figure we could have the deficit paid off in 5 years or less, and after all the debts are paid, I estimate we could abolish all taxes other than the Stupid Tax within 10 years, and fund the entire country off the revenues from that alone. 
)
It’s also time for companies to take as much responsibility in this as the public should be taking.
If the companies won’t do it they should be made do it.
So, the Fat Tax would be a good idea? 
This 3 year old gets this fat and you want to regulate the industry? Parents like this makes me believe in the notion of breeding permits. If they are this stupid, I’m surprised they can figure out how to ahem insert tab A into slot B to make a child. :smack:
If you are going to blame the industry for this, you give every fatty out there with lousy self control the ability to sue the companies and dodge any accountability for their own behaviour.
Am I the only one here who thinks these parents should be brought up on abuse charges?
“Next a war on perplexedness. Guys in suits come up to you, “which do you prefer, curtains or ducks?” … “hmmm…” you say. Then they shoot you.” Greg Fleet
I agree with the fat tax. And subsidising fresh fruit. I refuse to eat at McDees, and I refuse to buy a lot of food because I know that it might not be the healthiest option. But shit is it expensive to buy fresh fruit and meat!
My parents never let me eat shit like that growing up. I don’t know how parents can. It’s so entirely wrong. There’s nothing admirable about being obese. (unless of course you have some sort of disorder) It just shows you are stupid, ignorant and lazy.
People who disagree with this are saying that the public should just do it all themselves.
I’m saying that along with trying to get gobshites to stop slowly killing their children we need to make it easy for people to make *informed decisions by making sure that companies remove misleading info from packaging and not just bulk up thier food stuffs with amounts of fat and salt that equate to a large %age of a child’s recommended daily intake in one meal.
If they can show they are/will do this then great if not regulations should be put in place to make them.
Didn’t Steve Forbes propose a Fat Tax?
No?
My bad.
How much responsibility are the companies supposed to take? Nutrition warnings are right on the fucking bag. Should there be a censor that says “Put the snack food down, fatty” when you open the bag? Should all potato chips have “Don’t eat me” written on them?
We could classify fatty foods as WMDs and ban them.
Things like
Now with 20% fat on the front
and on the back in small writing you find out that there is in fact still a very large amount of fat in product
I would guess there isn’t a huge amount of regulation on advertising etc. in the States. That hasn’t really worked out for you has it?
Remember that this has impact on medical costs which effect everyone as somebody has to pay for it and that somebody will eithr be you, somebody who is charging you for something, somebody who is hiring you or your countries tax revenue.
These fatties are pick pocketing you, to use Lib’s phrase. Aren’t you mad about that?
Bollocks
Now with 20% less fat
No, that case is merely an extreme illustration of this:
It’s a multi-pronged strategy, one of which is education about the effects of junk food.
In Ireland there’s a proposal for a ban on junk food advertising targeted at children.
Assuming they are in work they are contributing as much as anyone else. What about people who live longer than average? are they ‘pick pocketing’ you too? What do you propose? Maybe we could set everyone a ‘health budget’ and when you’ve spent it no more free health care… down that road we lose a public health service altogether.
Holy shit, I had no idea advertising was sometimes less than objective. Does the tag say there’s no fat, or it’s now really healthy? No, it says there’s less, and unless that’s a lie, I can’t see anything wrong with it. Even though the type on the back is smaller, people can and do read it.
That was more to get a rise outta Lib BTW One And Only Wanderers 
Are you happy with the situation? What do you think should be done?
For the record, the UK are actually behind the US when it comes to obesity. Ten years behind, they reckon. And, without wishing to cause offence, that’s what is worrying us.
There is and has long been public disapproval of the general level of the weight problem in the US. When it emerges that the UK is on the same path, people get worried. When someone starts to cost the Sterling-value of that path and points out the effect on our beloved NHS, that worry his crisis point.
It’s not unreasonable that food labelling should be more clear. For example, “Eating more than one of these constitutes 50% more fat than the recommended daily intake”. That should do it.
More worryingly, there are many products marketed as healthy eating products when actually they are the exact opposite. For example, sugary breakfast cereals. Or “low fat” (in massive letters) versions of fatty foods that actually turn out to still be high in fat. Or foods pumped full of blood-altering chemicals that are pronminently displayed as “diet”.
We also have the extreme levels of marketing directly at children. When you advertise directly to the under-fives, you are, in effect, brainwashing them. They don’t have the critical faculties to be able to question what they see. Worst case – they grow up with the subconcious belief that McDonalds is Good.
Children are a blank slate. We don’t have to teach their palates to be dependent on sugars and starches for taste. And yet children’s food is routinely covered in white breadcrumbs and loaded with sugar, salt and fat. Why? Because it is a cheap way of making food. And there is no indication on the packaging that it is anything other than the ideal children’s dinner.
Noone is suggesting that anyone ban any food. They are saying that diet and nutrition is a complicated subject and people should be helped to make informed choices with clear labelling. That’s not so fucking difficult to understand and neither is it even particularly a controversial idea. I suggest that those arguing against it question why they are so against it. Because I can see no reason why it shouldn’t be implemented now.
pan
i’m not happy with the situation, but I don’t know what the correct ‘road to salvation’ is. I’m currently leaning towards educating school age children in good health practices - but how much real control do they have over what their parents dish up? What they do have a reasonable level of control over, is how active a lifestyle they lead. Less playstation and more hopscotch wouldn’t do any harm. More PE in schools perhaps?
No, you’re not.
Tidal wave of obesity, eh? Welcome to our world, the US has been leading this charge for years. Food is outrageously plentiful, to the point where one has to put effort into not overeating. Work is less and less physical so we have to put extra effort into exercising. Our bodies are designed to do physical work every single day and have our food intake limited by our circumstances.
It’ll get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.
I don’t mean to be dismissive of our dissenting American friends’ views, but has this hands-off approach worked in the US? Or has, in fact, the US got the highest rate of obesity in the world?
I don’t really understand that.
As far as I can see, the government spends a great amount of its time telling me what to do and think and if I don’t do it, they fine me for it.
Would you voluntarily put however many quid it is in an envelope and send it to the tax man every month?
Would you drive at however many miles it is limited to in a village, if there was no chance you’d get a fine and points on your licence?
Would you buy a television licence if you didn’t have to?
Amazing and all as it might seem to some, there are people who do not have as much self discipline of a gnat. There are people who give their child whatever he wants, as soon as he wants it, every time he wants it. There are people who do not know that a three year old is too fat if she is six stone.
I don’t want anyone to get on the SDMB patented “You hate children” bandwagon here, but children are by nature selfish and acquisitive and if the parents submit to it or don’t train it out of the child, then surely, at the very least, they are doing their child no favours and at worst, they are actively harming the child.
If the choice is making people pass parenting skills before they can be licensed to have a child or limiting the seductive advertising aimed at the children of overly indulgent parents; it seems to me that the choice is pretty clear for a any government which is serious about reigning in rampaging obesity.
And yet the government report that is talked about in nearly all the BBC links provided say that people are confused by labelling.
The head of a food producers federation said last night on the TV that a lot of work had to be done with regard to labelling and a random selection of people that were pulled aside outside a supermarket on ITV news last night didn’t have the first clue how to interpret the info on the food they had bought.
The situation that is in place is clearly not working. People need to be educated more and the industry has to take it’s part more seriously.
Nobody is talking about banning food stuffs or anything like it but something clearly needs to be done.