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| Thread: Nanny State Update |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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blizzardboy
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posted May 31, 2012 11:09 PM |
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Which, by all accounts so far, has minimal effect on anything.
I don't remember where I read it, but I remember a smart-sounding person(TM) talking about the fact that if there were really to be some ground-breaking changes in diet, it would involve A) a revamp of the entire culture, or B) A more tough-love and straightforward solution: wait for the cost of food to go up. The cost of a meal in the US is euphorically cheap, but it has some nasty inadvertent side effects if you're not careful. The portions themselves are also immense. I can order a meal for under 10 dollars, stuff myself, and then get a box to throw the leftovers in for later. Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining about this arrangement; it's great for me individually, but I think it shows how much some people are accustomed to eating.
With the way it is now, it is so ridiculously convenient and affordable to eat tasty, unhealthy food, that expecting to turn huge swathes of the population's habits around with some classes is unattainable and wishful thinking. It is arguably more difficult than getting people to stop smoking. Add it to the fact the US has a very heavy use of private transportation. Japanese & English people have to stuff themselves in trains to go places, which involves a lot of commuting via walking. In the US? Not as much the case. You hop in a car and go. Traveling really far? Well then you can grab a jet. Obesity is all-but inevitable. A few preppy nutrition-awareness classes have been and will continue to be a joke of a countermeasure. A lack of knowledge is rarely the problem here. It's not as though people are gobbling through an arsenal of bacon cheeseburgers because they aren't aware that they're fattening. It's because bacon cheeseburgers are: A) awesome, B) convenient, and C) cheap. It's a triple win in every single category, except it's not good for your belt size.
On a positive note, more obesity will mean a lower life expectancy for retired baby boomers.
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Elodin
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Free Thinker
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posted June 01, 2012 12:41 AM |
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I don't understand why anyone who has a choice lives in a liberal state. I just don't get it. Do such people just NEED others to run their lives?
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Revelation
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 01, 2012 04:22 PM |
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Thread cleaned. If you wish to discuss further about why your post was deleted for being off-topic, Zenofex, please do so in the feedback thread.
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del_diablo
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posted June 02, 2012 01:03 AM |
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I just wonder why they don't go towards the root of the problem and just attempt to remove subsides of corn sirup.
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OmegaDestroyer
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Fox or Chicken?
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posted June 02, 2012 05:10 AM |
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That's not really the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is personal choice and accountability. People choose to consume sugary beverages with large amounts of calories. Consuming such drinks on a regular basis can lead to weight gain, especially if not balanced by exercise and proper nutrition. The obvious result is that people gain weight from such drinks. However, instead of realizing "Hey, this stuff isn't good for me. I've let myself go. I should really limit my intake of it.", a lot think "This stuff has made me fat. It's McDonald's/Starbucks/Movie Theaters fault I'm like this! This would have never happened if they didn't sell those 32 oz. sodas!" Those people don't take responsibility for their actions and ignore the root fo the problem.
An individual's poor decision to ingest unhealthy beverages is what made him or her fat. The vendor offers a product. The consumer is responsible for accepting and consuming that product. If you consume something that you know is bad for you, you can only really hold yourself accountable for the consequences. It's analogous to smokers developing lung cancer. By now, just about everybody should know that smoking is bad for you and may result in cancer. If you choose to smoke, and get cancer, it's your fault. You can't blame the tobacco industry for your predicament. Nobody forced you to smoke, just like nobody has forced people to purcahse 32 oz. sodas.
For another example, take one of my clients (please). She wants to get custody of one of her children back. She lost said child because at the time, among other things, she dating a felon. The judge told her he would not let her have the child if she was going to stay with him. She chose to do so and lost her kid. She blames the judge for losing her kid, because he was unfair, blah, blah, blah. Now, she knows better. She knows that dating a felon will severly hurt her case. So what does she do? She starts dating ANOTHER felon. "But he's not violent at all; he's changed. He would never hurt anyone," is what she tells me. (The guy was in prison for aggravated assault; busted up a guy with a baseball bat.) From prior experience, she knows this is a bad chocie but insists on making it. It's not the judge who is screwing her over; it's her own stupid decision making. And until she realizes it, she'll never get her kid back.
Banning 32 oz. soft drinks at a theater or fast food restaurant will not solve the problem. The problem will only be solved when people decide to stop blaming others for their probelms and deal with it like adults. Unfortunately, that will never happen.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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JollyJoker
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posted June 02, 2012 09:44 AM |
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That's one lawyer I would NOT consult. 
The root of the problem is certainly NOT personal choice and accountability. Humans and societies are beasts of HABIT, not of decision, because following habits is easy, while deciding about things is WAY more difficult and stressful. Genetics and education plus environment form humans, and once a pattern has evolved, changing that pattern is HARD, while folllowing it is easy, and EASY is the natural way, simply because it uses up less energy.
Once people are old enough to be able to make conscious, responsible and reasonable decisions, they are unfortunately also victims of habits already, and their life has settled into pattern, changing of which costs considerably more energy than following it.
That's even true the other way round: Children used to a day filled with exercise (for a sport), discipline, work and so on, cannot suddenly change their ways later on, when no one is there who tells them what to do.
Also people tend to underestimate the mechanisms of capitalism.
Example: Obviously there is nothing wrong with teaching children not to waste money and never to throw away foodstuff.
Now you are in a theatre and you want a soft drink. You can buy 0.2 litres for 1.60 or 0.5 for 2.50 - what do you do?
When you decide to go for the big one, because the small one just isn't enough while the big one is not only cheaper than two small ones, but contains more - will you drink it to the last drop or leave the rest you actually don't want?
What would happen, if you could order drinks in any size, in 0.1 litre increments, the increment costing 0.65 each?
Decision making can be such a b****, if the options actually don't leave you much of a choice.
Of course that doesn't mean, such a law is or would be what we in Germany woukd call a "Schildbürgerstreich".
It will take a vendor approximately 5 seconds to think up interesting offers involving more than one container.
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted June 02, 2012 05:12 PM |
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So it's the fault of genetics, education, and environemnt, that someone got fat because he or she chose to drank a lot of sugary drinks? That's ridiculous.
You sound just like my coworker who smokes. He doesn't believe it's his fault he smokes; it's the tobacco companies' fault. Nevermind the fact that he chooses to drive to the store, walk up to the counter, state a brand he wants, pull out his wallet, and purcahse the cigarettes. It is his choice.
Humans are creatures of habit. I completely agree. A habit is learned. People learn to make stupid decisions and it's their fault they suffer consequences.
It ultimately boils down to people not wanting to admit their life sucks because of what they did. They want to blame someone else for their problems. Life is a lot harder when you don't have someone else to blame for your problems.
Quote:
Example: Obviously there is nothing wrong with teaching children not to waste money and never to throw away foodstuff.
Now you are in a theatre and you want a soft drink. You can buy 0.2 litres for 1.60 or 0.5 for 2.50 - what do you do?
When you decide to go for the big one, because the small one just isn't enough while the big one is not only cheaper than two small ones, but contains more - will you drink it to the last drop or leave the rest you actually don't want?
What would happen, if you could order drinks in any size, in 0.1 litre increments, the increment costing 0.65 each?
In the end, you can't blame the theater. The person wanted the soda. The person chose to purchase the soda. Whether or not she drinks the entire thing is up to her. Stating that he learned not to waste anything is a cop out. It's, again, putting the blame on a third party instead of taking personal responsibility.
____________
The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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del_diablo
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Manifest
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posted June 02, 2012 08:48 PM |
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Lets say you have a choice between corn syrup and imported sugar. Corn syrup is subsidized, and sugar is even more expensive due tariff.
You are right, its the induviduals problems: The induviduals who decide to produce such a thing, the induvidual who decides to subsidize the corn syrup, and the last thing to blame is human psysch.
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Salamandre
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posted June 02, 2012 10:02 PM |
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Wise decision. I was addicted to Cola since my youth, but only at 35 years old I noticed weight increase. Didn't care and in about 2 years went up to 125 kg for 2 meters tall. This was weird because I did not eat more than before but kept that 1 L of Cola daily and did not think about.
Once I banned it and kept doing one hour daily sport, I went down to my original weight in about 8 months (-30 Kg). It is incredible how cursed are those juicy sodas.
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blizzardboy
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posted June 02, 2012 10:23 PM |
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The reason why diet can be such an incredibly difficult habit to break, despite having no chemical addiction to it, is 1) Because it's something that is potentially learned in early childhood, depending on how lax the parents are. 2) Because the effects of it often aren't apparent until you reach at least your 30s. Most people can pork down as much food - and whatever food - they please when they're young and their body will burn through it like a furnace. You hit your 30s and 40s and follow the exact same eating habits, but suddenly you're gradually getting fatter and fatter. Then you have to try to undo a 30+ year habit, where the person quite literally may have never followed a consistently lean diet in their entire life. The advantage to trying to stop smoking, for example, is that despite the potent chemical addiction involved, a portion of the bad effects will grip you very shortly after you start smoking. One month of smoking and suddenly you're itchy if you don't have your afternoon smoke. Need to jog for a bit? Suddenly you're short of breath like an old man. Immediate bad effects will better inspire a person to change their habit before it becomes too heavily ingrained into their routine. A person that gets into smoking when they're a teenager has good odds of quitting in college because they don't want to blow what precious money they have on packs of cigarettes. They have better things to buy. Like Halo 4, beer, and gas. Not the case for eating.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 03, 2012 09:29 AM |
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Blizzard, it's not working that way with smoking - or any other habit, for that matter.
No one stops smoking because of negative consequences (and of course not because of POTENTIAL negative consequences, like "Smoking may cause cancer").
As long as a habit is associated with something positive, the two are weighed against each other, and most people will endure negatives to enjoy positives - that's human nature.
The only way to get rid of a habit is the realization that there is nothing positive involved and you are somewhat screwed over by your own brain and clever businessmen (or whatever).
And before you start protesting, just think about the last time you wanted something, because you felt very positive about it, but gave up on it because it had a snag.
Also you are not getting fat because your metabolism starts to slow down when you get older. Your metabolism slows down, if it does, because you move less and your hormons are less active. Sitting behind a desk, behind the wheel, in front of the TV or on the sofa is bad, while sitting in the classroom and behind the PC, but going to a rave in the evening works just fine.
True, as a kid you grow - but there are lots of fat kids nowadays, and one of the reasons is, that they not only sit in front of their PC or mobile the whole day, they also do not move in any way: school bus, being taxied by mum or dad, own car or motorbike, instead of walking or cycling, and so on. No more ball games on some yard with a couple of friends...
Of course, with that life style, as a 40- or 50-year-old you'll get even more problems - and you don't want to be fat AND a smoker, even though, smokers tend to get fat later, inevitably...
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JollyJoker
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posted June 03, 2012 10:08 AM |
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Quote:
So it's the fault of genetics, education, and environemnt, that someone got fat because he or she chose to drank a lot of sugary drinks? That's ridiculous.
You sound just like my coworker who smokes. He doesn't believe it's his fault he smokes; it's the tobacco companies' fault. Nevermind the fact that he chooses to drive to the store, walk up to the counter, state a brand he wants, pull out his wallet, and purcahse the cigarettes. It is his choice.
Humans are creatures of habit. I completely agree. A habit is learned. People learn to make stupid decisions and it's their fault they suffer consequences.
It ultimately boils down to people not wanting to admit their life sucks because of what they did. They want to blame someone else for their problems. Life is a lot harder when you don't have someone else to blame for your problems.
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Example: Obviously there is nothing wrong with teaching children not to waste money and never to throw away foodstuff.
Now you are in a theatre and you want a soft drink. You can buy 0.2 litres for 1.60 or 0.5 for 2.50 - what do you do?
When you decide to go for the big one, because the small one just isn't enough while the big one is not only cheaper than two small ones, but contains more - will you drink it to the last drop or leave the rest you actually don't want?
What would happen, if you could order drinks in any size, in 0.1 litre increments, the increment costing 0.65 each?
In the end, you can't blame the theater. The person wanted the soda. The person chose to purchase the soda. Whether or not she drinks the entire thing is up to her. Stating that he learned not to waste anything is a cop out. It's, again, putting the blame on a third party instead of taking personal responsibility.
It's probably out of professional habit that your main agenda is trying to put the blame on someONE or someTHING - which is exactly what your clients and in fact most everyone with very conflicting interests does. "It's just not fair!" - you probably hear that quite often. And, no, often it isn't - or at least it presents itself in such a way.
In truth it simply isn't that easy - you CANNOT put the blame on someone or something in 99 out of 100 cases, because reasons are much more complex than that. Remember, IF a conflict was EASY to solve, there would just be no conflict.
In fact, if you think about obesity - it's fairly easy to cure: take the person who is too fat, put them behind bars and simply let them hunger and work (move) for what they are allowed to eat. Problem solved - ok, by raping free will, but that's what have been happening one way or another ANYWAY, otherwise the person wouldn't be fat, only that the raping has been a lot more subtle.
You simply cannot expect people to change their habits JUST SO.
I mean, let's say, for days, weeks, actually, your eyes somewhat hurts and tear, and you go to a doc. Doc tells you, man, you gotta limit your screen time to one hour each day, and it would be better to divide the hour into two half-hour sessions, otherwise you'll lose your eye-sight within the next ten years. "It's just not fair, right?" So you ask, WHAT CAN I DO ALTERNATIVELY? Doc tells you, well, you have to keep your eyes moist, so you have to spray this stuff onto the closed lids, which will make the symptoms disappear for a while, but that won't cure you, you have to train your eyes, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening. If you do that a year, and keep to one hour screen time at most, in a year you can safely double screen time.
Ten years later, we find you with dark glasses a white stick and a dog, and everyone says, why, what a fool, he knew the score, until maybe someone slips in that, maybe it's not his fault alone: even as a 3-year-old his parents sat him in front of the TV 12 hours a day to have their peace and quiet, and he got his first PC age 5 with an internet flatrate, and then his doc gave him something to coveer up the symptoms at that.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted June 03, 2012 01:12 PM |
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Who said food wasn't a chemical addiction?
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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shyranis
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posted June 03, 2012 05:40 PM |
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I thought New York was just planning to tax them instead of outright banning them. What happened to that? This definitely looks like overstepping their bounds to me.
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Elodin
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posted June 03, 2012 07:33 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 19:37, 03 Jun 2012.
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The root of the problem is certainly NOT personal choice and accountability.
Hogwash. The cause of the problem of obesity or most problems affecting a person is the unwise personal choices the person made. Of course there are medical reasons for obesity and there are situations beyond a person's control (war, or whatever) that may cause problems. Are you fat? Change your food choices and exercise. Are you a drunk? Stop drinking, join a support group. Ect.
But discounting medical problems a person becomes fat because they chose to consume too much on a consistent basis. But that is really not the State's business. If I chose to eat three gallons of ice cream every day, consume 3 gallons of the most sugary soft drink that can be found and sit on my couch all day long that is none of the State's business. You'll notice a key word in the first sentence of this paragraph. Consistent. It does not hurt you at all if you chose to overindulge in food or drinks on occasions.
Further, banning the sale of large soft drinks in a movie theater will make NO impact on obesity at all. It is one more instance of control freak liberal symbolism. But of course if libs can get the public to accept such bans they can continue to stealthily creep in and gobble up other liberties as well until the State-god can unquestionably control everything each citizen eats, drinks, does, says, and thinks.
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In fact, if you think about obesity - it's fairly easy to cure: take the person who is too fat, put them behind bars and simply let them hunger and work (move) for what they are allowed to eat. Problem solved - ok, by raping free will, but that's what have been happening one way or another ANYWAY, otherwise the person wouldn't be fat, only that the raping has been a lot more subtle.
No, let's put the problem squarely where it belongs. On the shoulders of those who have made choices that made them fat. They have not been "raped" they have made poor decisions. Until they realize they have made poor decisions they will not change the lifestyle that led to them becoming fat.
Again, obesity won't be cured by the Nanny state telling them can't drink a 32 ounce beverage at the movies. Telling them such a thing is in fact what you call raping free will.
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blizzardboy
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posted June 03, 2012 10:20 PM |
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@JJ: Admittedly I'm partially thinking outloud here, but smoking has been in consistent decline for the past few decades, ever since it became common knowledge that there are multiple bad side-effects to it, including death. And along with the decline, just think about how the image of smoking has changed in the public eye. It was once upon a time associated with classiness, fashion, and even intelligence. Now it's associated with the complete opposite: the poor, the uncharismatic, and the dumb.
There are several advantages to picking up a habit later in life as opposed to having it ingrained into you from your earliest years. You're in a better position to make a conscious decision about it, and once you start paying your own bills, the financial aspect becomes a factor as well. If you're buying cigarettes, even as a teenager, it's probably coming out of your own pocket with whatever money you can scrounge together.
I don't see why you say a habit is only broken when a person comes to the realization that they're just screwing themselves by following it, and that they're being played like a fool by an industry. Realization is only the beginning, and it is well-known that being overweight = bad. It's bad for your health, bad for your mobility, and not to mention bad for your image. A chubby 20-year-old man generally gets stuck dating a chubby 20-year-old girl. Deep down, don't you think both of them wish for something sweeter? They're drawn to each other out of compromise*
*Not saying that fat people can't genuinely fall in love with each other or anything, but you know what I mean. People's expectations in terms of initial visual yumminess usually have to be lowered.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 04, 2012 07:55 AM |
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Quote:
@JJ: Admittedly I'm partially thinking outloud here, but smoking has been in consistent decline for the past few decades, ever since it became common knowledge that there are multiple bad side-effects to it, including death. And along with the decline, just think about how the image of smoking has changed in the public eye. It was once upon a time associated with classiness, fashion, and even intelligence. Now it's associated with the complete opposite: the poor, the uncharismatic, and the dumb.
Yeah, but you only had a point if everyone would start smoking, develop a habit and then stop. That smoking is on the decline has many reasons, but smoking hasn't become less habit-forming, and the habit isn't easier to get rid off; it's just so that less people start in the first place.
You might say, the bad consequences will (obviously) stop PART of the young population to deal with smoking (while in earlier times and especially at te end of the 50s and in the 60s smoking was advertised like hell and possible bad conseqences were either unknown or denied/suppressed - you can see that, when watching movies of that time: everyone is smoking and drinking like there's no tomorrow).
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There are several advantages to picking up a habit later in life as opposed to having it ingrained into you from your earliest years. You're in a better position to make a conscious decision about it, and once you start paying your own bills, the financial aspect becomes a factor as well. If you're buying cigarettes, even as a teenager, it's probably coming out of your own pocket with whatever money you can scrounge together.
I'm not sure whether that's right. You'd think, later in life you'd be in a better position to avoid picking up a habit completely (as opposed to being a child or youth when you do all kinds of silly things just for the heck of it, because you think it's cool, because you are on rebel course and so on), so if you do NOT avoid it, there will be reasons WHY you picked up the habit in the first place.
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I don't see why you say a habit is only broken when a person comes to the realization that they're just screwing themselves by following it, and that they're being played like a fool by an industry. Realization is only the beginning, and it is well-known that being overweight = bad. It's bad for your health, bad for your mobility, and not to mention bad for your image. A chubby 20-year-old man generally gets stuck dating a chubby 20-year-old girl. Deep down, don't you think both of them wish for something sweeter? They're drawn to each other out of compromise*
That something has creeping or potential negative consequences is pretty irrelevant once you have formed a habit - as opposed to general opinion habits give the addicted something they evaluate very positive, and that feeling is quite real. It would be a different matter, if you got fat from one minute to the next - wham, 50 kilos more. But that's not how it is working. Growing fat is a process that starts with developing slight overweight, which is something no one who has a sugar habit will bother to think about. Growing fat means growing into a new clothing size - unfortunately children and youths do that anyway, fat or not.
So there are basically two states of being fat:
1) Overweight - no problem; you can get rid of it with not much troule, so that means, it's no bother.
2) Fat - it would take serious effort to get rid of it, complete change of life and so on. FAT problem, and since the habit of eating has positive effect, the realization that you are VERY fat and cannot just shed a couple of kilos to solve the problem, is paradoxically forcing you even deeper into habit - you eat even more to fight the frustration.
Let's repeat the point: the worse the ACTUAL situation and consequences, the more the addict needs to satisfy the habit. It's no joke, but sad truth, that smokers their doctor tells that they may have a serious problem, will smoke a cigarette on that depressing news.
You cannot beat a habit with reason or willpower (that is, with the decision to stop because of the consequences it has or may have), because a habit means that you are CONVINCED life will be unearable without the stuff you are addicted to - in other words, for the addicted there can be no worse consequences than having to bear life without their habit.
An addict will beat their habit only when they realize that their own mind has built them a prison based on the fear to lose something they cling to, and that fear is based on a subjective POSITIVE feeling. People feel GOOD when they smoke or eat/drink sugar stuff.
You cannot beat that by summoning possible bad effects - who cares? If an addict manages to beat the habit by force of willpower and reason alone, they will be UNHAPPY (because they lost something that was very dear to them) and in constant danger of relapsing, simply because there is still this voice in them that tells them how SWEET it was just NOW to get a smoke, a drink, a sweet, a shot or whatever. They are STILL addicts, they are just living with permanent (mental) withdrawal.
The only way you get clean is a "reprogramming" that way, that you realize your drug of choice had nothing positive at all, but instead you were just viewing it that way for this or that reason.
Let me repeat that habits are not working that way that people are UNHAPPY with it. On the contrary. A habit is a habit, because following it makes the addict HAPPY. everything else, being fat, short of breath, having to work the street to get the money, are just SIDE EFFECTS, not more.
If it was different, no one had a problem to lose a habit, obviously.
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blizzardboy
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posted June 04, 2012 06:05 PM |
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It's a matter of having the necessary leverage; you need more negatives to push against the 'positives' (or I should say: the enticements).
Obesity is inadequately countered (in the US) because there's one too many elements to support fatty food addiction. It's cheap, convenient, and tasty, and there is less room for forgiveness because people are moving less and less on average. I disagree when you say smoking is just as addictive as it has always been. It is not; it is more expensive than it used to be, and it is less socially encouraged than it used to be. Mass PR campaigns against the image of smoking and the common knowledge that it is a very dangerous habit have made it so that in many social circles, you actually have peer pressure not to smoke. The nicotine in the cigarette is just one element of the addiction. Yes, it is presumably the biggest one, but not the only one.
The convenience and the tastiness of fatty food probably isn't going to go away. The price, on the other-hand, is distorted due to government subsidiaries on certain industries that encourage a culture of carnivores. The social aspect is a little more complicated. There's been more PR than there has ever been on the wisdom of a good diet, but it's still in a fairly early stage of development and its hard to say right now how much of an impact it will end up making. Peer pressure can do wonders though; the more friends that get together and start doing things together to drop a few belt sizes, the better. Not very many people have the lone wolf mentality, and trying to change a habit alone is hard.
This is all assuming that obesity is a bad thing beyond just the individual. If a guy drops dead from a heart attack a few years after he retires... that's a lot of money saved. But with highly advanced healthcare, they are prone to kick on for quite awhile despite what they have going against them.
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xerox
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posted June 04, 2012 07:52 PM |
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I defintely think that a fat country like the US needs to have taxes on crap food (which it is called in sweden) and especially EDUCATION.
I was SHOCKED when I read that Michelle Obama's campaign against child obesity was met with some very heavy opposition. Your schools also need to distribute free healthy food so that kids don't eat fast food every day. Now we have McDonalds in Sweden here too and its very popular but its not like we eat there every day. There's also a very withspread athetic culture now.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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JollyJoker
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posted June 04, 2012 07:54 PM |
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Quote:
I disagree when you say smoking is just as addictive as it has always been. It is not; it is more expensive than it used to be, and it is less socially encouraged than it used to be. Mass PR campaigns against the image of smoking and the common knowledge that it is a very dangerous habit have made it so that in many social circles, you actually have peer pressure not to smoke. The nicotine in the cigarette is just one element of the addiction. Yes, it is presumably the biggest one, but not the only one.
It seems you are mistaking something here.
Less smokers doesn't mean it's less addictive - in that case heroin would always have been nearly not addictive, since there are not many heroin addicts in comparison to smokers or drinkers.
It just means that less people get hooked in the first place, because they don't even try or stop after their first fag, feeling not good at all.
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