Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

edition.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 197 posts

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#111

Post by bbanyc »

smackmybishop wrote: post #5
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Usually I am for freedom to do anything you want as long as it does not impact other people. I am OK though with banning ads for sugary drinks because society pays a high medical cost for damage due to excess sugar addiction/use. This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. BTW, I worked in Singapore for a while in 2016. Wonderful place! People just seemed happy there, from business people to laborers. If…

There's a point there that I don't think gets enough discussion: As healthcare becomes increasingly socialized, personal unhealthy choices become an attack on society at large. Why wouldn't we ban sugary drinks altogether? Motorcycle riding even with a helmet? Maybe get rid of pasta. It's not clear to me where we should stop, if medical costs to society are a valid justification for reducing personal freedom...

Singapore is famously the country that banned chewing gum. Personal freedom has never been a priority there.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or a good thing, it's just different. There are a number of ideas they've successfully implemented there that would never fly in other countries - ethnic housing quotas, for instance. It undoubtedly works in reducing residential segregation, but I don't know if it's worth the cost in not letting people live where they want.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#112

Post by tpetry »

philwelch wrote: post #96
jniedrauer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arbitrary serving sizes are kind of useless though. In an ideal world, most foods would list nutrition information in two units: per container, and per 100g. You'd be able to tell at a glance a) what you're buying, and b) how it compares to similar items. Unfortunately that will not happen in the United States any time soon.

I dunno. 100g of butter is a lot.

But you could easily compare multiple brands because they will not have different package or serving sizes to trick the system. Here in germany 100g nutrition labels have to be added, made-up serving sizes can be used too if they want, but 100g nutrition tables are enforced.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#113

Post by andrepd »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Usually I am for freedom to do anything you want as long as it does not impact other people. I am OK though with banning ads for sugary drinks because society pays a high medical cost for damage due to excess sugar addiction/use. This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. BTW, I worked in Singapore for a while in 2016. Wonderful place! People just seemed happy there, from business people to laborers. If…

The argument is that "freedom of choice" is a slippery concept, when you have massified advertisement, which targets people basest neurological triggers to make them more likely to drink soda/drink beer/stuff their face with hamburgers/buy weight loss products/vote for candidate X.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#114

Post by Uhuhreally »

easytiger wrote: post #104
Uhuhreally wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Everything we see advertised is crap. All of it. The more it's advertised the worse the product.

That's just ridiculous.

have you forgotten the context of this thread ? Sugar water! One of the most advertised products of all time is sugar water. A useless product that makes people sick.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#115

Post by xhruso00 »

bad_user wrote: post #102
xhruso00 wrote: post #43

"In addition to an ad ban, the ministry announced that sugary drinks would also be required to display a color-coded, front-of-pack nutrition label to list nutritional quality and sugar content." I like Japanese/Taiwanese approach which list percentage of fruit juice (front-of-pack). And manufacturers can't cheat with substitutes like apple cause it doesn't count. This is way more useful for consumers to decide what…

There's no difference between "fruit juice" and regular soda. The fiber is gone so "fruit juice" will be as easily absorbed as regular juice and the sugar in it is just as potent. You could argue that "fruit juice" has some vitamins in it, but due to processing much of that is gone, plus you can fortify soda with vitamins as well. "Fruit juice" doesn't protect you from overeating calories, which is the primary proble…

I am not saying fruit juice sugar is better. I am saying this kind of information on packaging is useless (because it's at the back of packaging) and I want to know if the "Peach Cola" has anything to do with peach. In Japan/Taiwan it is written that there is 0% of peach. Once you experience this you will love it. Especially when you speak ZERO japanese or taiwanese

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#116

Post by xhruso00 »

levythe wrote: post #69
xhruso00 wrote: post #43

"In addition to an ad ban, the ministry announced that sugary drinks would also be required to display a color-coded, front-of-pack nutrition label to list nutritional quality and sugar content." I like Japanese/Taiwanese approach which list percentage of fruit juice (front-of-pack). And manufacturers can't cheat with substitutes like apple cause it doesn't count. This is way more useful for consumers to decide what…

Fruit juice is only marginally better. Most of the good stuff in fruit is removed when you just extract the juice.

I pointed that there should be other information in the front. Consider "Peach Cola" which is sold in Japan. It has 0 sugar but also 0% of peach. I prefer to see fruit juice amount especially when I don't understand Japanese but I can see picture of peach and percentage of peach inside.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#117

Post by Uhuhreally »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #84
Uhuhreally wrote: post #76

I would like to see a ban on all ads. I am sick of them. I resent with all my heart that wherever I go I'm bombared with propaganda for products. Nobody should have the right to hijack other peoples attention.

Banning all ads is wrong. Ads help promoting good products and services. If you ban all ads -- less people will be using good products and services, and that will make our economy less effective.

Idiot apologist.

What a despicable morally bankrupt thing to say

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#118

Post by smhost »

Uhuhreally wrote: post #114
easytiger wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just ridiculous.

have you forgotten the context of this thread ? Sugar water! One of the most advertised products of all time is sugar water. A useless product that makes people sick.

wow, dude. what do you have against african unity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyT_bYUUG6o

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#119

Post by xhruso00 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #51
xhruso00 wrote: post #43

"In addition to an ad ban, the ministry announced that sugary drinks would also be required to display a color-coded, front-of-pack nutrition label to list nutritional quality and sugar content." I like Japanese/Taiwanese approach which list percentage of fruit juice (front-of-pack). And manufacturers can't cheat with substitutes like apple cause it doesn't count. This is way more useful for consumers to decide what…

The UK has a similar "traffic light" system[0] on their foods. I cannot speak to everyone, but for me seeing red salt makes me look again at other options. It is a gentle nudge but helps. By contrast US food labeling is an anti-pattern. "Serving size" seems arbitrary and makes it impossible to compare foods even directly next to one another on the shelf (plus they're intentionally unrealistic, like a single chocolate…

Japanese have only the nutriction stats. I was talking about this (look at 1% of peach): https://www.japantrendshop.com/img/cocacola/coca-cola-peach-...

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#120

Post by easytiger »

blub wrote: post #108
easytiger wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site you are commenting on is effectively an Ad for yc. Should that be banned?

It's not "effectively" an ad for anything, it's a discussion forum. The fact that it also offers some publicity to YC's business is an additional aspect, but not the main one.

It's an "ad" in as much as anything. Not to mention it sells job advertisement space. It brings goodwill to the brand. A core tennant of advertising.

Such a weak minded assertion as "ban all advertising" without considering how that impacts freedom of speech is unbelievable.

Post reply on HN