Another step nearer tyranny

I understand that in most totalitarian states you are not allowed to fart, even in the privacy of your hovel. Now that's tyranny.

Joe

quote:

---

Is there still any activity left that is neither compulsory nor banned???
Laurie S

---

Getting angry.

quote:

---

So you'd rather the kids were fed on a diet of burgers supplied by global corporations whose only concern with profit.

---

why do people want to blame burgers when the real culprit is laziness? Let's face it people are too lazy to cook proper food and too lazy to exercise. Banning burgers is hardly going to help.
I once read an article by someone demanding that all fizzy drinks should be banned from cinemas and schools and that only fruit juices and water should be served as a means to combat the growing obesity problem. If the poor dear had bothered to check she may have noticed that fruit juices pack more energy than fizzy drinks.

I'd love to see the evidence you have that 'laziness' accounts for differences obesity.

"If the poor dear had bothered to check she may have noticed that fruit juices pack more energy than fizzy drinks"

Orange juice and coke have about the same amount of calories but the orange juice has slightly less (10g per 100ml compared to 11g) simple carbohydrates and the extra energy comes from a small amount of protein. Orange juice is also, obviously, full of vitamins and minerals that are very good for you, and I believe there is some argument that fructose is a slightly less refined carbohydrate than sucrose and so less bad for you. Some fruit juices also contain fibre content as well (from the fruit pulp).

So I think the "poor dear" was right and our children would be much healthier if they drink fruit juice rather than sugary carbonated water.

Matthew

quote:

---

I'd love to see the evidence you have that 'laziness' accounts for differences obesity.

---

why? It has nothing to do with the too many burgers link.

We have one major advantage in a democracy over a tyranny.

We get the opportunity to vote the buggers out now and then......

quote:

---

So I think the "poor dear" was right and our children would be much healthier if they drink fruit juice rather than sugary carbonated water.

---

healthier maybe but not thinner.

John

I asked if you have evidence because I've spent the last 4 years researching the role of motivational processes in relation to diet and exercise, and as far as I have seen, 'effort' does not reliably account for differences take-up of new health behaviours, and only accounts for a small to moderate amount of the variance in stable health behaviours.

The notion that people are obese simply because they aren't making sufficient effort to manage their weight isn't something that is supported by the health psychology literature.

Given that differences in health behaviours can't account for SES differences in an array of health outcomes, any simple explanations are going to be insufficient.

I do find the McDonalds Chicken Nuggets ads kinda disturbing, and I reckon banning the ads could only make lives easier for parents (cf the nag power section in 'The Corporation'), but I think it will not be sufficient in and of itself.

[This message was edited by Mekon on Sun 14 November 2004 at 23:08.]

Tom said
'Laurie, in your ideal world how do you encourage a population help bent on destroying itself? Your route heads towards anarchy.'

The point about freedom is that it includes the freedom to kill yourself via excess of alcohol, food etc. It is not the responsibility of a democratic state to impose itself on those freedoms even if the exercise of those freedoms may be considered detrimental to the individual.Exercising freedom irresponsibly may be annoying but is not anarchy.Such Stalinist leanings have come to the fore more and more in Europe over the last few years. In this country it is the last remnants of the 'nanny' state attitude of Socialism.
If someone chooses to binge themselves into an early grave through junk food, no exercise, tobacco and alcohol that is there right. My only caveat is that it is the right of the rest of us to refuse to pay for their medical care.

Bob

quote:

---

The notion that people are obese simply because they aren't making sufficient effort to manage their weight isn't something that is supported by the health psychology literature.

---

really? If you eat more than you burn then you're going to put on weight.
Most people today don't do a whole lot of exercise. We drive everywhere, we use escalators or elevators instead of walking, more and more jobs involve sitting down for the whole day. Our main pastimes also involve sitting down - watching tv, listening to music, playing on the pc etc.

I put on 20kg when I decided I didn't feel like exercising. Started exercising again and the weight came off. So in your considered opinion was I overweight because I wasn't putting in sufficient effort or because of some other reason that's helping to pay your research grant?

I've just read this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141006870/qid=1100475318/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-2804970-8455807
its bloody scary and a very good read

quote:

---

The notion that people are obese simply because they aren't making sufficient effort to manage their weight isn't something that is supported by the health psychology literature.

---

I assume this isn't what you actually meant to say?

It's obviously in the interest of 'health pscyhology literature' producers that obesity be down to something as yet unrealised.

Live fast, die when it's time.

Paul

Surely, the vast majority of people know perfectly well that junk food is bad for them. My children are allowed junk food only very occasionally. My wife would ban it altogether but I insist on the occasional trip to McDs because I believe that many people who are obsessively healthy eaters are also neurotic as hell. Anyway, humans are omniverous and our bodies/nervous systems/immune systems should learn to cope with variety and a bit of shit from time to time.

The issue here is one of choice and whether such choice should be legislated.

Steve M

Another of B.Liar & Co's silly games.

A draconian proposal is leaked to the press.

Outrage ensues and there is much talk of nanny-state intrusion.

The original proposal is then watered down or abandoned.

The government has thus successfully manipulated the press and doesn't seem so bad after all in the eyes of the electorate.

We've seen it with blanket National Speed Limits being reduced to 50 mph, all 30 mph limits being cut to 20 mph and 40 mph limits on all country lanes. The government leaked such proposals to the press only for Bumbling Two-Jags to finally come out and say it were nowt to do wi' them and it were just some safety boffins talking.

Then we had the Fat Tax and the pattern was the same.

There are other examples that don't spring to mind right now.

Regards,

Steve.

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Sheridan:
So in your considered opinion was I overweight because I wasn't putting in sufficient effort or because of some other reason that's helping to pay your research grant?

---

You are clearly a super human, who is able to perfectly turn his intentions into action. Sadly, most people have non-intentional failures to act, and where this happens, intention does not reliably account for why - ie. telling people they must try harder is not a reliable behaviour change strategy.

If your gross overconsumption helped pay for my research grant, thanks. I could do with another, so chomp on!

In a society with a free-on-demand health service nobody has the absolute right to live an unhealthy lifestyle. They tax fags. Why not sugar?

Let's cut out the middleman. Throw your McDonalds straight down the bog! Along with the carton that you would otherwise chuck into the verge from your moving car.

From my own observations of the obese at work and play. It is not just the fast food that is the direct route to obscene obesity. Many are sucking endlessly on the tit of a coke bottle.

I have never seen the European general public hanging on a sugar & water teat until very recently. Even those who do not suck on coke are drinking water from a bottle as if it were going out of fashion. Perhaps it is simply the fashionabe thing to do?

What on earth is going on? Are the members of the human race turning into giant baby-lookalikes? Are they all about to adopt the foetal position in response to the horrors of being in the EEC?

Nime

quote:

---

If someone chooses to binge themselves into an early grave through junk food, no exercise, tobacco and alcohol that is there right. My only caveat is that it is the right of the rest of us to refuse to pay for their medical care.

---

And

quote:

---

In a society with a free-on-demand health service nobody has the absolute right to live an unhealthy lifestyle. They tax fags. Why not sugar?

---

Now you both make the asumption that people with an "unhealthy lifestyle" is a higher total cost to society than those with a healthy one.

Now, let's asume, out of random and for arguments sake, that people with an unhealthy lifestyle lives ten years shorter than they should have. That means:
- They collect less pension. Money saved.
- Dying ten years to early, there may be one or two high medical bill diseases they don't get. Money saved.
- They might be to the doctor a couple of times more while living, but that's oposed by the money saved in the examples above.

A "healthy" lifestyle doesn't make one imune to various diseases or act as an guarantee to make one live in perfect health up to the age of 95 and then suddenly drop down dead.

JohanR

There is evidence that healthy lifestyles postpone and compress disabling health outcomes into the last few years of life. However, IANA health economist, and I think you probably need to be to dig about in numbers like those Philip Morris threw around when they concluded that killing smokers early would be a net benefit to the Czech economy.

On Saturday morning I was at the supermarket standing at the checkout behind a family of the two parents and a boy of about 11. Now we have all been there and can't help but see what they buy. Right?
The boy was chubby with a double chin, and the mother was about the same. The father was stick thin. The parents were about 30.
They piled on first packets of crisps - a heap of about 6-7 large bags containing a selection of flavours. You know the ones. This was followed by what is probably their food for the week, which was boxed pies, frozen chips, onion rings, pasties, burgers. No vegetables at all - not even frozen or tinned. Cereal - which was Sugar Puffs.
Next came 3no. 2 litre bottles of Sprite, 4no.2 litre bottles of Coke and bottles of something else I can't remember what.
Finally...and this nearly made me laugh out loud....was a packet of sugar: Silver Spoon "Lighter Touch" reduced sugar sweetener stuff.
I don't think that bad diets are about true ignorance, because people are not generally stupid, but they may not know how to be any different. Maybe they just don't know what else to get. It is a very easy situation to get into and with demands on time and mostly both parents working full time, it might not be possible to get out of the trap.
I can't see what advertising has got to do with it, but offer people healthy convienient options and it may help. If people are always going to eat processed foods, then the pressure should be put on the manufacturers to reduce salt & fat and provide good stuff. Maybe a ban on advertising junk will make food manufactuers change the contents in order to lift themselves out of the junk food bracket, and everyone will benefit.
Food here is a very serious problem and this might not be the right way, but something has to be done. Just look outside right now and look at the proportion of overweight kids walking past. It is very worrying, and these kids don't have the choice of what they are given - it's not their fault!
A lot of current young adults were brought up in households that don't cook, so they never learn how to do it themselves. They are not stupid, it's just alien to them. That's the problem.

I have to agree with what Rasher has said about time and lifestyles. We must all know people who think that cooking involves taking something out of the freezer and nuking it in the microwave or something you watch on the many cookery shows on TV these days.

Advertising aimed at kids is very powerful and persuasive. Miss S (4) often demands that we go to 'Old MacDonalds' so she can get her weekly toy and nuggets and chips fix (now made exclusively from cicken breast, god knows what went into them before!). We try to ration it but it is the easy option and many people take it.

I would be quite happy to see adverts for toys banned before the watershed as well. Fortunately, when Miss S is watching the TV she prefers the advert free Cbeebies.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
I understand that the Government is going to attempt to ban advertising junk food

---

The 'freedom to advertise' is not something I really give a sh*t about to be honest Laurie. I would like to ban them completely from my television, the only people who benefit are the TV companies and the corporations who pay for them.

quote:

---

Soon it will be illegal to eat junk food in enclosed public spaces!

---

An entirely logical conclusion.

quote:

---

I wonder what will be the next bete noir that our dear legislators can impose restrictions/censorshipon?(in our own interests of course)

Is there still any activity left that is neither compulsory nor banned???

Tyranny here we come...

---

Why do equate the existence of laws with tyrany? It's who gets to decide the laws which matters.

quote:

---

Laurie S

---

Yet again you believe the freedom of the multi-nationals to exploit us should be upheld. At least you are consistent.

quote:

---

The point about freedom is that it includes the freedom to kill yourself via excess of alcohol, food etc. It is not the responsibility of a democratic state to impose itself on those freedoms even if the exercise of those freedoms may be considered detrimental to the individual.Exercising freedom irresponsibly may be annoying but is not anarchy.Such Stalinist leanings have come to the fore more and more in Europe over the last few years. In this country it is the last remnants of the 'nanny' state attitude of Socialism.
If someone chooses to binge themselves into an early grave through junk food, no exercise, tobacco and alcohol that is there right. My only caveat is that it is the right of the rest of us to refuse to pay for their medical care.

Bob

---

I agree.

The restrictors always use the excuse "well the restrictions we are imposing are really in your own interest"

I think that I am the best judge of my own self-interest...I don`t need some faceless Govenment beurocrat to think/censor on MY behalf

I think that the evidence should be presented and people should be free to make up their own mind...

Stalin wanted to buid a better Soviet Union.....

Laurie S

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:

I agree.

The restrictors always use the excuse "well the restrictions we are imposing are really in your own interest"

---

Thou shalt not kill and all that.

quote:

---

I think that I am the best judge of my own self-interest...I don`t need some faceless Govenment beurocrat to think/censor on MY behalf

I think that the evidence should be presented and people should be free to make up their own mind...

---

So how is banning advertising WHICH IS THERE TO DROWN OUT THE EVIDENCE inconsistent with this?

quote:

---

Stalin wanted to buid a better Soviet Union.....

Laurie S

---

Omigod, I have read it all now.

BTW I am not Mick, feel free to respond to any of my points.

quote:

---

Originally posted by DLF:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
The restrictors always use the excuse "well the restrictions we are imposing are really in your own interest"

---

Thou shalt not kill and all that.

---

I don't understand your point here, DLF. Is your argument that MacDonald's, Coca Cola, Tate & Lyle, etc. are killing people?

If this is what you're saying I'd like to make the point that most things, taken in high enough quantities, are poisonous. Drinking 10 litres of water can (and has) killed. Having a Big Mac once a week with a cup of Coke or taking a spoonful of sugar with your tea will not, I suggest, do any harm.

Steve M