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As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

nytimes.com

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Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#31

Post by lend000 »

finid wrote: post #20
Zak wrote: post #2

“Can anyone seriously say that Vanuatu doesn’t have the right to exercise its health sovereignty in every way possible to protect its population from an epidemic of that scale?” I would usually say exactly that. It's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences. Foods that accurately state their nutritional content and contain only ingredients that can be safely…

It's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences. True, but when that level of individual freedom has negative repercussions on the community, the government has to step in. Else the society will cease to be. Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment. Individual freed…

> Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment.

Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. You cannot say that my choice to get fat infringes on anyone's freedoms more than you are infringing on my freedom by preventing me from eating what I choose. It's not a characteristic of a free society. Pure democracy is mob rule. We might as well ban gay marriage, too, because there are more people who don't like it and claim it infringes on their rights than there are people who want to get gay marriages (see how that can be twisted the other way?)

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#32

Post by lend000 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #26
Zak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.

A fat slob overflowing the seat next to me on an aeroplane has a direct effect on me and I would be perfectly happy for measures to be taken to mitigate it.

Or we could get rid of anti-discrimination laws and allow airlines to charge based on weight/have assigned seating types. But I imagine that wouldn't go over very well with the people who want to ban junk food.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#33

Post by vosper »

Zak wrote: post #22
finid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences. True, but when that level of individual freedom has negative repercussions on the community, the government has to step in. Else the society will cease to be. Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment. Individual freed…

There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.

In countries that provide publicly-funded healthcare you are arguably directly effecting other people's lives by the cost of the medical treatments you'll end up needing if you are obese - these treatments will be funded out of the taxpayer's pocket, when that money could be going to better schooling, infrastructure, or some other use.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#34

Post by lend000 »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #24
Zak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.

There's the scale of economics. If only few people buy healthy food, supermarkets have no incentive to offer it at all. Even if they offer healthy food, the price is higher because they can't buy in bulk or else they waste much of it.

> If only few people buy healthy food, supermarkets have no incentive to offer it at all.

Then how come most grocery stores have healthy food?

If it truly was a minority group that wanted to eat healthy food, what right do they have to force the majority to buy what they want to make it more economical? Although the premise is flawed, because the real reason 'healthy food' is expensive is because the foods considered healthy inherently cannot use many methods that increase yield like pesticides. And then some go so far as to claim GMO's are unhealthy/cannot be organic, further driving up the prices of foods that get to wear the healthy food labels. Increasing demand for healthy food would make it more expensive, certainly in the short term.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#35

Post by xom »

finid wrote: post #15

In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.

The [WTO] said in a statement that it would allow a 300 percent import duty on turkey tail imports and a domestic prohibition on sales during the transition period to allow the country to “develop and implement a nationwide program promoting healthier diet and lifestyle choices.”

Reminds me of the planet Norstrilia in Cordwainer Smith's fiction, which exports an astronomically precious immortality drug, yet maintains its archaic culture (resembling Australian ranchers with a British cultural inheritance) with import taxes of over 20000000%.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#36

Post by Zak »

vosper wrote: post #33
Zak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.

In countries that provide publicly-funded healthcare you are arguably directly effecting other people's lives by the cost of the medical treatments you'll end up needing if you are obese - these treatments will be funded out of the taxpayer's pocket, when that money could be going to better schooling, infrastructure, or some other use.

This is also true with privately-funded health care based on insurance with shared risk pools that don't take behavioral risk factors in to account. It's the very definition of a moral hazard.

But if you accept that argument, where is the line? What personal decisions, if any shouldn't be subject to regulation?

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#37

Post by finid »

lend000 wrote: post #31
finid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's up to individuals to make decisions about what they do and do not eat and live with the consequences. True, but when that level of individual freedom has negative repercussions on the community, the government has to step in. Else the society will cease to be. Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment. Individual freed…

> Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment. Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. You cannot say that my choice to get fat infringes on anyone's freedoms more than you are infringing on my freedom by preventing me from eating what I choose. It's not a c…

Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not.

Well, if you have to receive public assistance because of your bad eating habits, then that's a "quantifiable effect" on my pocket book.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#38

Post by Mz »

finid wrote: post #37
lend000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment. Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. You cannot say that my choice to get fat infringes on anyone's freedoms more than you are infringing on my freedom by preventing me from eating what I choose. It's not a c…

Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. Well, if you have to receive public assistance because of your bad eating habits, then that's a "quantifiable effect" on my pocket book.

Under Obamacare, their increased health care costs also costs everyone (in part because Obamacare is the worst of all worlds -- it would be difficult to intentionally design something worse).

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#39

Post by richdougherty »

finid wrote: post #15

In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.

I'm asking because I genuinely don't know: did Samoa apply bans to unhealthy locally produced food too or just to unhealthy imported food?

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#40

Post by Zak »

lend000 wrote: post #32
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fat slob overflowing the seat next to me on an aeroplane has a direct effect on me and I would be perfectly happy for measures to be taken to mitigate it.

Or we could get rid of anti-discrimination laws and allow airlines to charge based on weight/have assigned seating types. But I imagine that wouldn't go over very well with the people who want to ban junk food.

Most airlines in the US have an official policy allowing them to require passengers who cannot sit in a single seat with the armrests lowered and seatbelt fastened to pay for an additional seat. They usually try to employ alternatives, but on full flights, people do get bumped if they don't fit in one seat.
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