Monday, December 17, 2012

Food Nannies

It appears that more and more experts and government officials want to force certain dietary restrictions on the populations - usually the poor - of western countries. Cassandra Wilkinson in The Australian writes

But this didn't stop the House Standing Committee on Health and Ageing from concluding that government should act to end fatness noting it, "has the tools: legislation, policy and regulation".

The committee compared losing weight to rolling a ball up a large hill and suggested that while government couldn't change the size of the ball it could "reduce the environmental gradient".

To see what is contemplated to slim the fatness slope we can look to the Obesity Policy Coalition, a group of diabetes and heart health charities, which wants to regulate food composition (changing recipes to remove, for example, trans fats); pricing and availability and marketing (including food advertising, promotion and labelling) as well as urban planning and transport.

This affects everything from changing the recipe for Tim Tams to deliberating removing parking spaces from new housing developments to make you walk to the bus stop.

More extreme "solutions" proposed by other fat-ivists include making "fat towns" compete in weight loss contests tied to government funding for sporting and recreational facilities.

And this

Rachel Davey, the Director of the taxpayer-funded Centre for Research & Action in Public Health at the University of Canberra bas just written a piece in the taxpayer funded The Conversation arguing not just for the usual policy clap trap of banning advertising and introducing fat taxes, but has actually gone so far as to advocate food rationing. That’s right, food rationing.

But its funny when these schemes fall flat on their face like this pet project of Michelle Obama:

New rules on school meals inspired by Michelle Obama were intended to wipe out hunger and malnutrition among American students - but some are complaining they have had the opposite effect.

High schools are now forbidden from giving pupils more than 850 calories for their lunch - even if they are fast-growing teenagers or even student athletes.

One enterprising group of adolescents channelled their anger at the policy into a parody YouTube video promoting their cause entitled 'We Are Hungry'.

So they think a bunch of growing teenage boys are going to be filled on a few pieces of lettuce and rice? 

Wilson also describes more government idiocy:

Less than two years ago, Denmark introduced the world's first fat tax.

Foods containing more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat like sausages, butter and syrup waffles (which I personally would risk a small infarction for) were subject to the surcharge. The results? Danes crossed the border to buy delicious treats in Germany, and Denmark lost jobs instead of kilos. The tax was rescinded and a decision taken not to proceed with a sugar tax.


As I heard Dennis Prager say the other day: Its better to have a population that is fat and free than one that is skinny and unfree.



No comments:

Post a Comment