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

washingtonpost.com

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

#291
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. Honestly - I can't blame anybody who could be found lurking, let alone posting on hackers news to think there's no way that this isn't common sense. However, it's not. It's really, unfortunately, very far from it in the U.S. I now cannot easily find it (at least in a brief search on Google) because of recent bullshit regarding the keywords, but a few years back, there was a medical case that briefl…

A variety of issues? So not something simple like alcohol killing her liver? Then I'm skeptical. There's nothing special about plain water.

Huh?

I think you've missed the point.

There's a person out there who thinks it's a perfectly healthy way of life to consume beer as their only fluid intake. Every day. For years. I guess you really need the context of the article - the main concern of it was really highlighting the fact that they weren't aware only drinking beer could been even remotely harmful to somebody, specifically because it had "light" in the name. Like, even if it had nothing to do with her being hospitalized. Not an argument as to whether or not doing so/having the choice to is wrong - simply that the fact a beverage, alcoholic nonetheless, could not be even slightly bad for the human body, because it had "light" in the name...

I know that may seem like satire to us - but this person was completely serious. Or is there something about your comment that I'm missing?

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

#292

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…

*refined sugar, not all sugar. sugar in a whole fruit aren't bad, the fibers in the fruit help your body break down and absorb the sugar over a longer period of time. just don't eat refined food.

Sugar is sugar. If you are subject to metabolic syndrome it's really bad for you, even from fruit, if eaten in large amounts.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read that Safflower oil or Avocado oil are one of the healthiest oils to cook. Safflower oil is supposedly even good for you. As with everything, moderation is a key factor.

"Everything in moderation" isn't actually great diet advice. There's a paper floating around somewhere showing that people with a limited diet of healthy things fare better than people with a very wide diet that included unhealthy things. My take is that "everything in moderation" is a mental crutch that people adopt when there's some part of their diet that they know isn't _good_ but that they don't want to give up…

Most people aren't going to stick to healthy foods only though, thus moderation is "good enough", It's better to be at 75-80% and not feel guilty rather than 10% good food and 90% junk food because you just couldn't do the 100% good all the time diet

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't blame this on Americans. Walk into any tiendita in rural Mexico and you will find isles of candy and sugary beverages, much of which Americans wouldn't recognize. Mexico loves sweets. I'm glad they're recognizing that dietary health is a serious issue and trying to make changes. But I wonder what effect this will have on paleterias? They're one of the many things I miss from Mexico.

We certainly can. There's a huge amount of influence america has on global eating habits. Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, and McDonald's are some of the major corporate villains, in case you forgot, and they deserve their reputations.

Then stop eating it. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? If I can say no to sweets anyone can.

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

#295
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A variety of issues? So not something simple like alcohol killing her liver? Then I'm skeptical. There's nothing special about plain water.

Huh? I think you've missed the point. There's a person out there who thinks it's a perfectly healthy way of life to consume beer as their only fluid intake. Every day. For years. I guess you really need the context of the article - the main concern of it was really highlighting the fact that they weren't aware only drinking beer could been even remotely harmful to somebody, specifically because it had "light" in the…

I'm suggesting that the story is missing very important pieces or possibly not true at all.

(And if it didn't actually harm her, was she even wrong to think a light beer was safe to drink? And by that I mean safe in the amount she drank, not some strawman about it being impossible to harm a human ever in any quantity. Note that not even water passes that strawman test.)

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind of concentrated sugar product is going to be unhealthy regardless of the process that got it there. Fresh squeezed orange juice and honey aren't refined, but they're still much too sweet to be consuming large quantities of.

If your concern is obesity and diabetes I encourage you to look up fruititarians. They consume 3000+ calories a day of fruit and loose dangerous amounts of weight. It's not healthy to consume such low fat and protein but it goes to show you can't gain weight on fruit juice. Conjecture: it's sugar and polyunsaturated fats at the same time that cause issues.

The real concern is systemic inflamation caused by sugar (both high average levels and large spikes are bad)

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

#297

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…

You are wrong, there's nothing indicating that PUFAs are as problematic as sugar or even problematic at all, on the contrary the evidence we have show they are beneficial.

It concerns me that your comment is the top voted, as it can lead to dangerous dietary extremism, say avoiding all PUFAs which are among other things implicated in helping the immune system "Paracrine interactions between adipose and lymphoid tissues are enhanced by diets rich in n-6 fatty acids and attentuated by fish oils. The latter improve immune function and body conformation in animals and people. The partitioning of adipose tissue in many depots, some specialised for local, paracrine interactions with other tissues, is a fundamental feature of mammals."https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15946832/

1. You shouldn't just throw in links to "support" your claims - to me this shows you don't understand what you're talking about, you should cite the relevant text otherwise it's just hand waiving.

The studies you cite are about radicals generated from PUFAs that are naturally a part of cell membranes, not from diet, and even goes against your claim by saying that PUFAs from diet help generate antioxidants that eliminate such radicals.

"Any change in the cell membrane structure activates lipoxygenases (LOX). LOX transform polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to lipidhydroperoxide molecules (LOOHs)." i.e. cell membranes naturally have PUFAs."..."In order to remove LOO* radicals, plants and algae transform PUFAs to furan fatty acids, which are incorporated after consumption of vegetables into mammalian tissues where they act as excellent scavengers of LOO* and LO* radicals." - hey eating PUFAs help cells make radical scavengers. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17914157/

2. Omega-3 is a polyunsaturated fats - yes they are less stable than SFAs, but that probably does not matter at all unless you're eating rancid oils. Polyunsaturated fats are not "extremely" reactive either whatever you mean by that.

Then we know that diets rich in PUFAs and MUFAs have positive effect on cholesterol ratios "We conclude that a mixed diet rich in monounsaturated fat was as effective as a diet rich in (n-6)polyunsaturated fat in lowering LDL cholesterol. " https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2761578/

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

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parenting issue or not we protect children with laws all the time. Think no further than alcohol and tobacco products whose sale to minors is banned. Sure we could say "where are the parents" but that's not how reality works and good solutions are the one that work in reality not on paper. Without legal push to make everyone work in unison there will always be an entity (a corporation) willing to invest enough to pus…

You're ignoring the point. The issue is one of culture (and parenting when it comes to children), in Mexico and in all other countries. Corporations are an easy scapegoat that also fits a political ideology on the left. It's also a complete fallacy to claim that people cannot see through things. People are not stupid they know that it is their diet that makes them fat. People deserve at least this credit and respect.…

> Corporations are an easy scapegoat

When they lobby (pay) to get more influence than you have as a voter then I'd say they they are nnot just "scapegoats" but actually guilty together with the politicians they bri... I mean lobbied with. And corporations get to profit from this while the society as a whole pays the price for the fallout.

> political ideology on the left

Why do some people always need to turn everything into a political ideology thing? Contrary to your belief it adds nothing to your argument, if anything it subtracts most of the little weight it had to begin with. Off the bat after a single line your comment holds about as much weight as a wet paper bag.

> are obviously completely different and a very poor analogy.

Is it? It's the state banning something considered unhealthy in one way or another. Why is drinking 100% sugary drinks totally acceptable but a glass of wine or beer, or a piece of pornographic material are illegal?

> So... Following the logic

Then by all means, follow the logic don't just replace it with your skewed one and pretend that it was somehow a natural progression of what I said.

> then people can do whatever they want but live with the consequences.

So... Following your logic governments shouldn't be allowed to ban anything. But people can still do anything they want. They will just have to live with the consequences exactly as you said. In this case the consequence is that if you sell this stuff to kids you get a fine.

Ban them, tax them, disincentivize people to buy them, claw back from the corporations the costs of having a society hooked on, disabled, or slowly killed by those very products. It just has to be a clear sign that the state and the society at large shouldn't bear the costs of supporting a person who has severely undermined their health from the age their brain and body are still developing. And it's also society protecting itself by protecting kids from parents' mistakes.

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

#299
post #44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick googling says 35k murders in 2019 for a population of about 9M. So, in mexico city, over 99.5% of the population follows the law that says you can't murder people. Not sure what your point is.

That's for the whole of Mexico, so more than an order of magnitude off (120 million). Still an insane number of murders, what a tragedy.

That's 30 per 100,000, which is less than several U.S. cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate Though, there are alot of Mexican cities on that list. And the only countries of comparable size that have a higher murder rate are Venezuela (30m) and South Africa (60m): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... (Interestingly, arguably it's Central America and the Caribbean that stand out for their high murder rates, not any specific country in the region, which suggests a more complex phenomenon than straight US-funded cartel violence.)

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your concern is obesity and diabetes I encourage you to look up fruititarians. They consume 3000+ calories a day of fruit and loose dangerous amounts of weight. It's not healthy to consume such low fat and protein but it goes to show you can't gain weight on fruit juice. Conjecture: it's sugar and polyunsaturated fats at the same time that cause issues.

The real concern is systemic inflamation caused by sugar (both high average levels and large spikes are bad)

You mean high blood sugar as in hyperglycaemia?
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