posted
(not "eww, gross" but "incidence of disease")
To what extent is the government responsible in reducing preventable causes of disease? A third of all deaths in the US in 2000 was caused by two preventable things. Besides the question of lost, wasted, or shifted resources, certainly we hold the extension of lives to have some worth.
But how do you balance this with the freedom of the individual to choose their own path? Would the government try to constrain the industries responsible? How? Through taxes? Through making certain things illegal? Or would it be right for the government to more heavily tax the individual who puts such a burden on health care? I'm sure there are more options. What is the best? To do nothing?
-- I've tried to generalize the question, without applying it to the top two preventable killers in the US. But if you'd like, you can base your arguments around them. According to the CDC, in 2000, tobacco was the cause of 18% of deaths in the US, and 'poor diet and physical inactivity' accounted for 16%. The next highest was alcohol consumption, which causes less than 4%.
posted
Banning things doesn't work, the prohibition proved that (the current war on drugs proves this to some extent as well). Higher taxes on products, if high enough will have the same effect as banning that product. Higher taxes on the companies that make the products will just drive them offshore. Higher taxes on the indiviual for burding the health system, make no sense. Health care is not a government run operation so most people pay for their health care themselves. And those who don't if taxes were raised on them because of their actions people would have a fit because you would be raising taxes on the poor. Most people who are more likly to die from these causes already pay more for health insurence. The solution is social change, but not the social change that those worthless truth ads are promoting. People need to be conviced that smoking will kill them, that they need to exercise, etc. Painting cigarette makers as the great satan solves nothing.
------- It bothers me that the CDC lists tobacco as the cause of death. Except for allergic reactions to tobacco no one dies from tobacco. People die from emphysema, lung cancer, throat cancer, heart failure, etc. These things kill people, even people who have never smoked, not tobacco. (the same argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people).
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posted
Tobacco is probably the most addictive drug known to man. Banning it will not help. Obviously food cannot be banned. Taxes on food and tobacco would hurt poor people out of proportion. What is needed is more education.
Also, alcohol and tobacco companies should not be the people in charge of producing or sponsoring anti-drug or tobacco ads. There is a reason all those ads make you want to buy a pack of cigarettes or a fifth of alcohol- they appeal to the rebel within all of us. The kids saying no are all dorks. Food companies do not have to be so subtle yet, so they just bombard you with images that say "Eat me and be happy."
A large part of the education effort should be directed towards teaching people (especially kids) what the advertisements are doing, and how to avoid being influenced by them.
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quote: Also, alcohol and tobacco companies should not be the people in charge of producing or sponsoring anti-drug or tobacco ads
Absolutely. The tobacco and alchohol companies are some of the world's best at advertising. They have studied for years what makes ads effective and what makes them not.
So now that the tobacco companies are forced to make anti-tobacco ads, they use those skills to make extremely uneffective ads. I have never smoked in my life, and I think it's a pretty stupid thing to do, but those ads make me want to smoke just to spite those idiots making the commercials! I hate those commercials!
*gasps for breath*
But really, they are saying "We don't *really* want you to come and buy our product, but we'll continue to produce it anyway". Nobody believes that. Everybody knows they just make those commercials because they are forced to. They are the most phony thing in the world. </hyberbole>
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posted
I always love the Super Bowl, where they usually have a couple of inane anti-drug ads and at least ten commercials for Budweiser.
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posted
I totally agree, I cannot see an anti-smoking ad by Philip Morris and take it seriously. "Don't smoke kids, but as soon as you're 18...".
Kids eating habits and the gov't...obviously, the gov't should not have control over what parents feed their kids. Taxes? Who decides what's crap and what's not? Personally, I would not let my kids eat half the stuff federally funded food programs allow. BUT, there should be controls over food in schools...whether vending machines, school lunch program, prize parties....It is pointless to teach children aboput good nutrition, then serve them Krispy Kremes as a prize for achieving a goal, or having Taco Hell for sale in the cafeteria. Selling crap in the schools legitimises it. Of course, that would mean funding schools well enough that they did not have to put in a Coke machine to buy enough textbooks for each student. What a concept.
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posted
Guess what, romanylass? When I was in high school I would rather have starved than eaten the "nutritious" slop available in the main lunch line. Was it healthy? Probably. Was it edible? Hardly. I ate burgers and snacks because that was the only thing available I could stomach.
Nutritious food is worse than junk food if no one will eat it.
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posted
Quite true; soy burgers are disgusting. Usually the only thing I could stomach was two helpings of fries, with liberal amounts of salt. Healthy food does not have to taste like crap, but healthy and cheap probably will. I would rather save my money than eat some of the "meals" they served in my high school cafeteria, even if those meals were healthy.
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the CDC does list the 'cause of death,' but it is widely known and accepted in the medical community that smoking/obesity/etc are the underlying factor.
I like the idea of making changes in the schools, either through advertising awareness or healthy food options. All in all, though, we're stuck with the tobacco industry, aren't we?
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posted
Why is it the government's problem? Because health care has gone from 1/20th of the Gross National Product to 1/6th. And if we stay in the same paradigm, it will just keep going up, and very rapidly. It will be a combination of Medicare and Social Security that will really challenge the economy in the next 20 years.
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posted
we are stuck with the tobacco industry until it is no longer profitable to sell tobacco. And then it is still doubtful that the tobacco companies will go away, their other products would simply become more important.
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posted
good luck on that effort, fallow. nicotine is one of the most addictive substances used by man. there are an enormous number of resources and methods for quitting smoking. I'm sure any number of us would be willing to provide support if you'd like.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: we are stuck with the tobacco industry until it is no longer profitable to sell tobacco. And then it is still doubtful that the tobacco companies will go away, their other products would simply become more important.
And remember that there is a vast third world market, too.
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yes, nicotine is addictive. the most frightening thing I found, trying to quit before, was not the sheer will-power-drop-everything-else-to-feel-like-shit it took to get through the first 3-days or week of withdrawal symptoms. it was realizing that after 3 months of being nicotine free, I still felt like a zombie. brain in a fog. not feeling like myself.
that's not the way it is for everyone. i know folks who a can smoke "socially" (and honestly). i'm not one of those.
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posted
Obesity is also gaining media and government attention in the UK.
The government is considering taxing 'fat foods' to help with the increasing costs. They are also offering fruit and vegetable vouchers for poorer families.
Any of this going too far? Or is it vital, at this point? In the UK, they're losing an estimated 18 billion days a year for 'sick days,' and 30,000 people die every year in the UK because of obesity-related disease.
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posted
I don't like the government trying to dictate to people what they should eat and drink (or smoke and take, for that matter). Education is the extent of what they can do without becoming too big brotherish, I think. We believe here in letting people decide with their pocketbooks. There's no benefit in trying to protect people from their own bad choices. All you can do is try to teach them to make better choices. Taking their choice away is worse than the alternative.
If they do want to tax things that are harmful, then I feel the money collected should be earmarked to help the very people dealing with the resultant harm. Cigarrette taxes should pay for lung cancer research and smoking cessation clinics and so on. Alcohol taxes should pay for addiction treatment programs and drug educational programs, not schools and buses. There's a gray area in letting society benefit from people's self-destructiveness. It makes it too easy to encourage it out of one side of our mouths while we are vilifying it with the other.
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs on the same principle. Legalize them and try to educate people to choose not to use them. A democracy can't really survive long term on the basis that people are too stupid to decide for themselves what is good for them.
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posted
I tend to wonder less about whether the government is "going too far" and more about whether these measures will be at all effective. I don't think they will -- people (me included) are amazingly stubborn, and will likely resent having their eating habits dictated. Many will do the reverse of what they are being pushed to do simply out of spite/resentment.
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posted
If a school cafeteria actually offered healthy food, and some kids don't like it, the answer in NOT to serve crap, but to encourage them to brown bag.
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It's hard to find breakfast cereals that aren't made by a company owned by big tobacco anymore. Also cookies and crackers. This is one of my favorite conspiracy theories, that they are finding a way to piggyback their marketing of snack foods into cigarrettes.
Here's an article about a Utah school district trying to reduce junk food Heber Nutrition Policy
It kind of goes with Anne Kate's idea that it's wrong to count as benefit funds that come from harming people (the $8,500 vending machine income).
[ March 21, 2004, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
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posted
There have been several stories on the news in the last year about kids being the primary agent of change -- petitioning to remove candy bars from vending machines as so on. The message is getting through to some of them. Meanwhile the adult nation remains largely glued to the diet fad of the month.
Needless to say I would have serious problems with the government imposing gradated taxes based on lifestyle...but I have no problem with companies charging whatever they deem a market value. As this epidemic hits more people in the pocketbook (viz. everyone's premiums going up because of an obese and/or smoking minority), you can bet there will be created whatever structural changes are necessary.
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posted
i was reading something a while back that said that there was a limit to how nutritious something had to be to be put in school lunch programs. if it didnt pass the bar, it wasnt put in. ...if i remember correctly, it was actually almost presented to the governing council of our school. ...following this rule, water wont be allowed in schools, as it has zero nutritional value, yet we need it to survive.
not that im arguing for one side or another, i just thought that bit was interesting...
posted
Re: school dietary changes. I don't think I'm convinced that a kid needs to eat healthy in order to be a healthy adult. Obesity in kids is relatively low. It seems to be in their mid adulthood that they really start to pack on the pounds. I used to eat HORRIBLY* as a kid, and I manage to be a fairly healthy person in my mid 20's. There have been studies in mice that have shown that in mice, as soon as an obese mouse lost weight, the morbidity reaches that of mice that have been of healthy weight the entire time. This is similar to the decreased health risk of smokers once they've quit for 5-10 years (though morbidity that began when one smoked will still continue).
School-age education is important, but kicking out every semblance of fatty/sugary food from the schools isn't vital.
I think the education right now needs to be geared towards adults, especially as the baby boomers are reaching prime-morbidity ages. Are nutritionists covered under health insurance? I checked, but I couldn't find out. They should be. Doctors should be taking a more active role in informing their patients of the health risks in increased weight. Studies show that a patient is much more likely to change bad behavior if warned by their doctor. Food industries should take a bigger step in fighting obesity. McDonald's recently stopped the supersize, I think. Lay's company has cut out trans fats (heart disease more than obesity specifically, but pertinent) from their chips. These companies need to continue to take a stronger role.
*My favorite meal at a restaurant was baked potato soup and a appetizer size of bacon cheese fries. No joke. And I drank four or five cans of soda a day. And leftover pizza for breakfast. But I never got overweight, due to the wonders of youth metabolism.
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posted
Water (and fiber) has zero caloric value; but saying it has zero nutritional value is misleading at best. It is listed as an essential nutrient in both of the bio textbooks I just checked.
posted
Side comment about the Atkin's diet. It's really sad that this diet is threatening the livelihood of many carbohydrate-related food industries like orange growers and bread companies. At least awareness is growing. But at a recent lecture I attended on nutrition, the nutrition doctor told us that Atkins doesn't seem to be as good at long term weight loss when compared to strict low-cal diets with exercise.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Moreover, poor eating habits developed in childhood, while certainly not impossible to break, do make it more difficult to develop good habits as an adult.
That doesn't mean "kicking out every semblance of fatty/sugary food from the schools" -- that I think would be extremely counterproductive -- but offering healthy options that taste good, and encouraging moderation.
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posted
I was under the distinct impression that childhood obesity was becoming an epidemic, almost. I thought that's why there are so many, many more young kids and teens with type II diabetes. And all these overweight/obese kids seem to turn into obese adults. But then, I'm not a parent and I don't see kids. *scratches head* They aren't teaching that in medschool these days? Huh. Where is CT?
posted
mkay, I agree, obesity in kids is high. it's lower than adult obesity, but it is on the rise.
Oh, I'm just anti throwing out all the vending machines like one school was proposing. I agree that healthy food options would be nice. But cafeteria food isn't known for being tasty. My school had fast food brought in and sold by most clubs during lunch. I'd hate to see that discontinued just so the kids can eat cruddy cafeteria food that has 'nutritional value.'
Hm. So I think what I'm saying is that at-home food education would be good, but practically speaking it's a pain to put into practice in the cafeteria. As sad as that is.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
and to continue this silly line of thought...
I still think education of adults is going to be the biggest thing. Afterall, parents are the ones who buy food for their kids. A kid isn't going to necessarily instruct their parent to buy vegetables instead of frozen TV dinners next time they're at the grocery store.
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