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Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

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Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#71

Post by _bxg1 »

prepend wrote: post #67
_bxg1 wrote: post #58

It'd be much harder than cigarettes to define and enforce, and more prone to loopholes. What's a "sugary food"? Grams of sugar? They'd just sell fun-sized. Percentage mass? That could impact fruit. Added sugar? What is "non-added sugar"? Specific product categories like soda and candy? They'd just walk the line with things like "sweetened sparkling water". I support the idea in principle, and I hope they figure out a…

Foods with added sugar should be an easy starting point.

If they can come up with a way to measure that that can't be gamed

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#72

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

teamski wrote: post #43
paulcarroty wrote: post #5

And sitting without physical activity too, please, it's much more dangerous.

Exercise is important especially for your brain but bad nutrition has a much higher impact than no exercise.

Out of curiosity, how did you become so knowledgeable about nutrition? This comment, and your other (now deleted) comment make it seem like you are really confident that you know more than everyone else.

My biggest complaint about learning about nutrition is that everyone says opposing things, and it is really difficult for me to know what is right and what is snake oil.

Any tips on learning the “right” way to be healthy?

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#73

Post by umvi »

Alex3917 wrote: post #29
umvi wrote: post #2

How about we start treating alcohol like smoking? For example ban alcohol advertising like we have with tobacco and I bet society would improve in a lot of unforeseen ways (besides the obvious reduction in alcohol related deaths and diseases and family issues).

For most people, alcohol isn’t addictive in the same way that smoking or sugar is. If you eat stuff with a lot of sugar it makes things without sugar actually taste worse. Whereas drinking alcohol doesn’t make water taste worse or whatever. Also alcohol only kills 80k or so Americans per year, way less than smoking or sugar.

I think you are underestimating the costs of alcohol on society by reducing it to "just" a death count. I won't deny that sugar consumption is a public health crisis.

But on the other hand, consuming sugar mainly only harms yourself. People that consume sugar (usually) don't go kill innocent people or tear apart their family or cause all sorts of permanent physical and mental issues in children.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#74

Post by will_brown »

darkpuma wrote: post #9

That's simply not going to happen because there is no "second hand sugar" scenario. Even alcohol, which is incredibly destructive to third parties by any measure (domestic abuse, drunk driving, etc), hasn't successfully been publicly vilified to the same extent as smoking.

Well there are children, not exactly “2nd hand sugar” but it’s a good faith arguement...alcohol and tobacco are age regulated whereas sugar isn’t.

The incidences of both fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes in children is pretty alarming, and just saying that and focusing on the number of incidents is alarming rather than the fact a single child has either of those diseases, whereas the first medical cases of either only occurred in the 80’s. I don’t think the first case of childhood type 2 was even diagnosed in the UK until the 90’s. Now we have 1.25 million kids in the US with the disease whereas 100% of all cases could have been prevented through diet.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#75

Post by wtvanhest »

bunderbunder wrote: post #51
darkpuma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it doesn't work in Russia is far from proof that it couldn't work elsewhere. Edit: Prohibition on advertising is not prohibition on alcohol. I reject the relevance of this suggested equivalency. There is no risk of organized crime getting supercharged by a prohibition on alcohol advertisements .

{ "Advertising increases demand for a product.", "Banning advertising does not reduce demand for a product." } I think you really do gotta pick one there, because each implies the other's opposite. You don't really even need two different studies to demonstrate "demand is higher in the presence of advertising" and "demand is lower in the absence of advertising". It's mathematically impossible to experimentally demons…

I dont have a strong opinion on the topic of alcohol advertising, but, on your core point advertising can also attempt to take market share rather than grow the market.

If you advertise a craft beer to take share from budwiser, its possible that no additional beer was drank, but the ads were still effective

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#76

Post by darkpuma »

bunderbunder wrote: post #51
darkpuma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it doesn't work in Russia is far from proof that it couldn't work elsewhere. Edit: Prohibition on advertising is not prohibition on alcohol. I reject the relevance of this suggested equivalency. There is no risk of organized crime getting supercharged by a prohibition on alcohol advertisements .

{ "Advertising increases demand for a product.", "Banning advertising does not reduce demand for a product." } I think you really do gotta pick one there, because each implies the other's opposite. You don't really even need two different studies to demonstrate "demand is higher in the presence of advertising" and "demand is lower in the absence of advertising". It's mathematically impossible to experimentally demons…

All good points. Furthermore it's easy to consider the possibility that in different cultural contexts the consumer demand for alcohol is driven by different factors. It may be the case that in one region alcohol consumption is driven by advertisements that promote it as a party drug, while in another region alcohol consumption is driven by oppressive poverty and bleak outlooks on life.

In other words, the reason a 40 year old coal miner with black lung drinks every day might be different from the reason a 19 year old frat bro drinks on friday and saturday evenings.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#77

Post by gist »

Alex3917 wrote: post #29
umvi wrote: post #2

How about we start treating alcohol like smoking? For example ban alcohol advertising like we have with tobacco and I bet society would improve in a lot of unforeseen ways (besides the obvious reduction in alcohol related deaths and diseases and family issues).

For most people, alcohol isn’t addictive in the same way that smoking or sugar is. If you eat stuff with a lot of sugar it makes things without sugar actually taste worse. Whereas drinking alcohol doesn’t make water taste worse or whatever. Also alcohol only kills 80k or so Americans per year, way less than smoking or sugar.

> Also alcohol only kills 80k or so Americans per year

Important to point out that the negative health impact of any 'vice' (and you can consider sugar a vice given this discussion) go way beyond just 'death'. There are so many negative impacts that are significant vs. just 'how many people die'. For example health care costs and related health problems (which result in economic impact as well as costs for everyone).

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#78

Post by scythe »

s33n wrote: post #13

Is there much difference between sugar and refined carbs like white bread?

In my amateur opinion, yes. The principal difference is pleasure: sugar and other sweet things are more pleasurable to eat than bland foods like white bread.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4224

This is important because eating when you're not hungry is a huge risk factor for obesity. It's not rewarding or fun to eat bland foods when you're not hungry, but it is still fun to eat candy when you're not hungry. This can be particularly problematic when sugary foods become a form of hedonic substitution or a coping strategy in bored or depressed individuals. Additionally, there are some studies which suggest that the tongue may become desensitized to sweetness when habitually eating sugary foods, potentially motivating individuals to choose sweeter foods at meal times:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ejn.13149

White bread isn't good for you, but it lacks these effects.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#79

Post by llamathrowaway »

Alex3917 wrote: post #29
umvi wrote: post #2

How about we start treating alcohol like smoking? For example ban alcohol advertising like we have with tobacco and I bet society would improve in a lot of unforeseen ways (besides the obvious reduction in alcohol related deaths and diseases and family issues).

For most people, alcohol isn’t addictive in the same way that smoking or sugar is. If you eat stuff with a lot of sugar it makes things without sugar actually taste worse. Whereas drinking alcohol doesn’t make water taste worse or whatever. Also alcohol only kills 80k or so Americans per year, way less than smoking or sugar.

Is there any reliable source to back up the claim that sugar is more addictive than alcohol?

I am suspicious about this claim because there are plenty of people and families ruined directly as a result of alcoholism. I don’t think sugar addiction is causing nearly as much trouble as alcoholism, despite being a more widely consumed and easily available substance.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#80

Post by gist »

umvi wrote: post #73
Alex3917 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, alcohol isn’t addictive in the same way that smoking or sugar is. If you eat stuff with a lot of sugar it makes things without sugar actually taste worse. Whereas drinking alcohol doesn’t make water taste worse or whatever. Also alcohol only kills 80k or so Americans per year, way less than smoking or sugar.

I think you are underestimating the costs of alcohol on society by reducing it to "just" a death count. I won't deny that sugar consumption is a public health crisis. But on the other hand, consuming sugar mainly only harms yourself. People that consume sugar (usually) don't go kill innocent people or tear apart their family or cause all sorts of permanent physical and mental issues in children.

> But on the other hand, consuming sugar mainly only harms yourself.

See my comment re: health care costs (which everyone pays for).

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