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Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

edition.cnn.com

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

#151

Post by wenc »

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…

Doesn't the nutritional label list "glucose/fructose/sucrose content" though? (I don't know, I'm just asking here)

Nutritionally, simple sugars are the same whether they come from fruit or syrups. Taste-wise they are different, but nutritional labeling is primarily concerned with the former rather than the latter.

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

#152

Post by oska »

srl wrote: post #18
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…

> This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. Maybe this is a petty, pointless distinction, but I think they're quite different. Singapore banned the ads , not the actual consumption. Not wearing a helmet chiefly harms yourself, and it's hard to argue that it's immoral. Encouraging others not to wear a helmet, though... that seems pretty objectionable, just like ads for tobacco etc. (Of course there are…

> Singapore banned the ads, not the actual consumption.

I think it's a very important distinction, and well made by you.

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

#153

Post by smackmybishop »

friendlybus wrote: post #146
smackmybishop wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Erm, we just killed the food pyramid which was held up as a standard of health for 30 years. Are you sure you want to enact bans on what the government thinks is unhealthy? There are a whole bunch of materials in the natural world that we just assume are safe because they've been around 'forever'. If you're going to use science as your standard for bans, there are billions of dollars of tests to do. There's some dark…

Just to be clear, I'm against universal healthcare for this reason.

I think we should pay for the consequences of our own choices, and agree the government is terrible at deciding what's unhealthy.

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

#154

Post by soulofmischief »

friendlybus wrote: post #146
smackmybishop wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Erm, we just killed the food pyramid which was held up as a standard of health for 30 years. Are you sure you want to enact bans on what the government thinks is unhealthy? There are a whole bunch of materials in the natural world that we just assume are safe because they've been around 'forever'. If you're going to use science as your standard for bans, there are billions of dollars of tests to do. There's some dark…

The poster was making a point that this kind of ban is a huge slippery slope. They were not speaking in support of the ban.

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

#155

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #56
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 different from sugar water in some ways (for example, apple juice has sorbitol, which promotes bowel movement), but in my view the differences don't matter and they should both be covered under this ban. That much sugar with no bulk is just unnatural and should be viewed as a dessert.

It's always nice when other people decide what I should eat on the assumption that I can't consume in healthy moderation.

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

#156

Post by friendlybus »

soulofmischief wrote: post #154
friendlybus wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, we just killed the food pyramid which was held up as a standard of health for 30 years. Are you sure you want to enact bans on what the government thinks is unhealthy? There are a whole bunch of materials in the natural world that we just assume are safe because they've been around 'forever'. If you're going to use science as your standard for bans, there are billions of dollars of tests to do. There's some dark…

The poster was making a point that this kind of ban is a huge slippery slope. They were not speaking in support of the ban.

Ok, fair enough

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

#157

Post by tus88 »

lemmsjid wrote: post #150
tus88 wrote: post #103

Why not do something that might actually work, like ban the sale of high-sugar carbonated drinks?

Banning products that a sub-population of people are effectively addicted to has a long, multi-instance history of not working and instead contributing to crime (see various drug prohibitions). A product being banned can actually be a form of advertising (or at least production of demand) by suggesting it is risky, cool, or potent in some way. On the other hand, banning advertising for a category of products, or rest…

Banning the sale of != banning the thing itself.

If the goal was a massive reduction, not total elimination, I think it would work.

Would many people really go to the black market to get sugary Coke when the supermarket has shelves of Diet Coke available?

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

#158

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

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…

FWIW, Singapore gained some notoriety a few years back for being the least happy country in the world, worse than eg. Syria, Haiti and Afghanistan: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore-leas...

This seems a bit extreme, but neither would I describe it as a utopia. Life is great if you're rich, and noticeably better than most of neighbors if you're not, but there's an awful lot of pressure on all levels of the pyramid except maybe the very top.

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

#159

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

You weren’t there when Malaysia was ruining the air then?

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

#160

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

bbanyc wrote: post #111
smackmybishop wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

While the stated goal is indeed reducing residential segregation, it also has the suspiciously convenient side effect of ensuring that every voting district has a Chinese majority.
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