Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children • Hacker News Board

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#221

Post by aylmao » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

baconandeggs wrote: post #166

OCASM wrote: post #55

Adults will just buy them for the kids. I bet tons of stores will just ignore the law too.

Isn't this what already happens?

Yes, to some degree, but it's also not uncommon for kids to use their allowances to buy junk food at the store.

I remember growing up (I'm from Mexico) chips often had promos where you could find collectibles with cartoon characters in the bags [1]. The cool kids had huge stacks of these, so I begged my mom to get me chips mostly for the toy. I didn't have an allowance and my mom knew better so I never got any though.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tazos

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#222

Post by bluGill » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

liability wrote: post #117

chrisco255 wrote: post #43

Are they going to ban tacos too?

I'm confident you can construct an unhealthy taco, but is there anything inherently wrong with tacos? Fundamentally it's just a bit of meat, veggies and cheese. The tortilla is grain and thus arguably not great, but tortillas are pretty small compared to the average sandwich bread.

Sandwich bread is mostly air, tortillas are smaller, but they seem to contain a lot more substance.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#223

Post by waffle_ss » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

liability wrote: post #77

thewickedaxe wrote: post #10

This law is way way way overdue. American Corporations are killing Mexico's youth with junk food. I know kids who exclusively drink soda. Healthy, beautiful kids who deserve to go out and play and live their best lives.

I know it's in vogue to blame everything on America, but Mexico has a thriving domestic junk food industry too. And frankly, many of their snacks are much better than anything America makes (Takis in particular, I think I'm addicted to them...) Anyway I support this law. Banning junk food/drinks for kids is long overdue. It's little different from banning the sale of cigarettes to kids.

Yes, Bimbo is a fully Mexican company and makes products like gansitos, negritos (now just "nitos"), barritas, Duvalin etc. that Mexicans love. That's not even getting into other sweets that Mexicans love like pan dulce, paletas, bolis and so on.

Frankly to blame America is to take agency away from Mexican people and reeks of paternalism and ethnocentricity.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#224

Post by munk-a » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

jachell wrote: post #176

munk-a wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet if you ask any random heroine addict if heroine is bad for them they will say yes - they'll just have more compelling reasons to keep using. Addiction is a disease and junk food is super addicting.

You're moving goalposts.

I disagree - I was trying to provide a counter example to your statement on the lack of a contribution of ignorance to addiction. I think most addicts are well aware of the negative effects of their addiction at a conscious level and at the very least, if asked if their addiction was harmful, would reply "Well yea a bit" or "Well yea it could be" - people with drinking problems don't live in a happy go lucky land where they think everything is a-okay, they are coping and trying to survive. Most are quite aware that their habit is destructive but either don't see another way to move forward or endow a lack of personal strength with all the guilt of their habit - "If I could stop I would, but I'm too weak."

So I think mentioning that people are generally aware of the bad side effects of junk food isn't helpful - some people indulge due to perceived financial pressures (especially time pressures) others because of the short term pleasure- "Everything is going to hell - at least I can enjoy this milkshake and forget about things for a while." Additionally you have just plain old cravings and other factors.

I agree that the obesity epidemic isn't caused by a lack of information - so I think your point is important, but I think it's also important to realize that addictive substances almost never have that lack of information. Booze and cigarettes both tend to come with really heavy warnings about side effects but those warnings don't really have a noticeable effect.

Forcing manufacturers to put those warnings on products is essentially a big cop out by the government to avoid taking any real action.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#225

Post by badrequest » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #26

sitkack wrote: post #16

Sugar is an addictive poison. These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and-metabolic... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

>These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home. Sugar is sugar. What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

> What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

I can't effortlessly and cheaply acquire a honey bun when I've had a bad day if I have to make them at home.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#226

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #201

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #86

This is a good idea, and the people in the comments are rightly pointing out sugar's problems. But just as problematic as sugar are vegetable oils which are in almost every packaged product you can buy at the grocery store. They cause all sorts of health problems because the vegetable oils are extremely reactive (due to being unsaturated fats and so having double bonds that can react with other molecules inside your…

> (due to being unsaturated fats and so having single hydrogen bonds that can react with other molecules inside your body). What do you mean by "single hydrogen bonds"? C-H bonds are always single bonds, and I am unfamiliar with any kind of "double" hydrogen (intermolecular) bonding. Unsaturated fats, by definition, have at least one double bond, between carbon atoms.

[deleted]

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#227

Post by fullshark » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

Press2forEN wrote: post #40

sitkack wrote: post #16

Sugar is an addictive poison. These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and-metabolic... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

It would be a lot easier for statists if humans were merely cogs to plug into machines to advance the state, and spent all their free time at home doing nothing.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#228

Post by minimuffins » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #43

Are they going to ban tacos too?

No.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#229

Post by aylmao » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

the_70x wrote: post #57

so under the law, anyone selling a candy to a child could be prosecuted as a criminal activity, with Mexico broken law system this seems to be a really bad idea

The drinking and smoking age is 18. You can definitely get cigs and booze before your 18th birthday if you're crafty, but I've never seen a shop outwardly sell these and bribe cops, nor are cigs and booze trafficked by cartels— this just sounds ridiculous.

Source: I grew up in Mexico. It's definitely more lax than the USA, but it's not the Wild West.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#230

Post by spanhandler » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

novaRom wrote: post #206

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #86

This is a good idea, and the people in the comments are rightly pointing out sugar's problems. But just as problematic as sugar are vegetable oils which are in almost every packaged product you can buy at the grocery store. They cause all sorts of health problems because the vegetable oils are extremely reactive (due to being unsaturated fats and so having double bonds that can react with other molecules inside your…

Why anything containing psychoactive drug is actually legal to sell to kids? There's a lot of reports how bad is caffeine to underdeveloped brain. And look at any developing nation: everyone is hooked to Coca-Cola.

> And look at any developing nation: everyone is hooked to Coca-Cola.

Everyone (more or less) is outside a few liberal, urban, health-focused pockets of the US, too. Or to sweet tea, or some other sugary caffeine drink. Unless you intended "developing nation" to cover those parts of the US, as well :-)

[EDIT] Not sure what rubbed people the wrong way about this, but if it's the qualifiers then it's my understanding that both "liberal" and "urban" are, independently or together, correlated with smaller waistlines and healthier lifestyles, in the US. Almost certainly including consumption of sugary drinks (indeed, this seems to peak in the "deep red" South, in the US, from what I can find). If that's wrong I'd be interested to know about it.