arewenearlythereyet
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I think trying to avoid blame where blame is due is a mistake it breeds a kind of passive “it’s not my fault” culture that is counterproductive. I don’t think comparing the obesity crisis (driven by overconsumption of calories) to a medical illness is a fair comparison. Neither is comparing food being addictive like a drug is the same. The health crisis in type 2 diabetes is definitely linked to obesity like lung cancer is linked to smoking. Unlike smoking though we all have to eat it’s part of what we need to do to stay alive. That means the advice is always going to center around self control. That means if you are fat you need to change your lifestyle and curb what you eat (exercise is less impactful to lose weight than just reducing the calories in).
consumer pressure (people buying more of a thing/it being popular) is what drives retailers and manufacturers and foodservice outlets to create eating opportunities. If we (the consumer) didn’t purchase these things they wouldn’t exist. The alternative is quite a bit of state control I would think most of us would shun. The sugar tax is a crisis measure to curb consumer spend. If consumers don’t react to that, where do we go from there? Perhaps we should all have a timed vending machine in our homes controlled by the government to only release metered out portion controlled food that meet some calorie balanced meal target guideline? I exaggerate to,illustrate the point, but honestly what do people think is going on?
It is as simple as the consumer having available food to eat 24/7 and not having to expend many calories to hunt or gather it meaning they overeat. I think it’s highly unlikely that E numbers or an imbalance of hunger and satiation hormones are driving the obesity crisis. It’s far more likely to be overeating calories despite what some people say. Yes there is something about eating an imbalanced diet with too many carbs in them...but the easiest way to reduce carbs is to reduce the total amount you eat. Then if you still have problems and are losing weight you can tweak the carb and sugar balance down in favour of other things (vegetables, protein, unsaturated fat etc)
I think this is a case of not blaming the obese person, but accepting that if you are obese you had something to do with it.
Yes it’s difficult to lose weight but the weight gain in the first place is part of the consumer (us) right to choose what they eat and when. Manufacturers and retailers don’t fix the market they follow it.
The recent hype about gluten free on the internet has resulted in over 50% of all purchases being due to people choosing to do it as a lifestyle change vs having anything to do with a health condition for example. The retailers are more than happy to stock a range of higher margin products to service this need (which is equally misinformed). If we all ate less the retailer would just shift to selling the new thing that we wanted and the manufacturers would change to suit it.
From a soft drinks perspective the sugar tax is great for the manufacturer since they get to sell more water and less ingredients as they switch to reduced sugar and sugar free variants.
Whether the price hike on soft drinks will do much for obesity is up for debate...we will have to see.
consumer pressure (people buying more of a thing/it being popular) is what drives retailers and manufacturers and foodservice outlets to create eating opportunities. If we (the consumer) didn’t purchase these things they wouldn’t exist. The alternative is quite a bit of state control I would think most of us would shun. The sugar tax is a crisis measure to curb consumer spend. If consumers don’t react to that, where do we go from there? Perhaps we should all have a timed vending machine in our homes controlled by the government to only release metered out portion controlled food that meet some calorie balanced meal target guideline? I exaggerate to,illustrate the point, but honestly what do people think is going on?
It is as simple as the consumer having available food to eat 24/7 and not having to expend many calories to hunt or gather it meaning they overeat. I think it’s highly unlikely that E numbers or an imbalance of hunger and satiation hormones are driving the obesity crisis. It’s far more likely to be overeating calories despite what some people say. Yes there is something about eating an imbalanced diet with too many carbs in them...but the easiest way to reduce carbs is to reduce the total amount you eat. Then if you still have problems and are losing weight you can tweak the carb and sugar balance down in favour of other things (vegetables, protein, unsaturated fat etc)
I think this is a case of not blaming the obese person, but accepting that if you are obese you had something to do with it.
Yes it’s difficult to lose weight but the weight gain in the first place is part of the consumer (us) right to choose what they eat and when. Manufacturers and retailers don’t fix the market they follow it.
The recent hype about gluten free on the internet has resulted in over 50% of all purchases being due to people choosing to do it as a lifestyle change vs having anything to do with a health condition for example. The retailers are more than happy to stock a range of higher margin products to service this need (which is equally misinformed). If we all ate less the retailer would just shift to selling the new thing that we wanted and the manufacturers would change to suit it.
From a soft drinks perspective the sugar tax is great for the manufacturer since they get to sell more water and less ingredients as they switch to reduced sugar and sugar free variants.
Whether the price hike on soft drinks will do much for obesity is up for debate...we will have to see.
