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Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

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

#91

Post by onetimemanytime »

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…

>>In countries like Malaysia I have no idea what i am buying (sugar water vs real fruit juice)

In a lot of countries it's safe to bet that you get fruit flavored sugared water. Corruption makes it impossible for consumers to have any chance of real products. Many on HN might not understand but a phone call from "above" can turn away any inspection, and they don't dare to bother you again.

I'm all for choice, let people drink pepsi /coke all they want but let's have full disclosure. Allow them to advertise, as long as they say that it's all junk. I

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

#92

Post by nitrogen »

undefined3840 wrote: post #10
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...

In SF sugary drinks are taxed extra. There are signs that demand for sugary drinks are on the decline naturally e.g. demand for sparking water has increased as people look for alternatives to drinking a coke. And there was a recent article on how juice consumption has dropped to new lows...

One of the unfortunate side effects of the SF tax though is that an $8 canister of sports drink powder (essential to provide calories and minerals during longer periods of exertion) has a $7 tax. I don't think a tax approaching 90% is in any way just.

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

#93

Post by greggman2 »

ValentineC wrote: post #87
greggman2 wrote: post #85

In 2010-11 Singapore there used to be close to zero non-sugary drinks at convenience stores. Even all the teas used to be sweet. Lately they started carrying Japanese brands of non-sweetened tea but for a while if you wanted non-sweet tea you had to make it yourself. Which of course is probably better for the planet but if you're just out and about and wanted a drink from a 7/11 your options were pretty slim. The big…

> Tapioca Milk Tea was popular in Taiwan in the 90s and made it Los Angeles in the late 90s early 2000s. People tried for years to bring it to Japan and I was told it was too sweet for Japanese tastes. But, now it's even sweeter and has some how exploded in popularity to a ridiculous level. I believe it was around 2011 that the more premium bubble tea vendors in Singapore started offering a choice of how much syrup t…

Koi Cafe and Tiger Sugar are both in Tokyo now as are about 40 other brands, all within the last year or so.

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

#94

Post by proc0 »

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…

Imagine 50 years ago they had passed a law to ban any advertising of products that are not low-fat or non-fat. That research turned out to be wrong and eating fat is good.

The problem with this has nothing to do with the freedoms of sugary drink companies, but rather with thinking that controlling EVERYBODY will solve the problem. You can ban all the ads, fat people will still find their soda fix somehow. Protecting children is one thing, but banning them across everything is really more of an exercise of authority, rather than a useful policy.

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

#95

Post by anticensor »

BubRoss wrote: post #19
mellosouls wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And corporations can't vote .. :)

Corporations are a centralization of power that has obligations to money above all else. Also if you give me the choice between being able to vote and being to to hire a lobbying firm, I know which would have more influence.

Would you admit the corporation one vote or as many votes as total number of shares divided by number of shares held by smallest shareholder?

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

#96

Post by philwelch »

jniedrauer wrote: post #68
jakelazaroff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be so simple to fix the serving size issue, too: just force labels to list nutrition information for the whole thing as well as per serving!

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.

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

#98

Post by philwelch »

junipertea wrote: post #61
adrr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helmet laws and seat belt laws cut the supply of organs to those in need.

They also hopefully decreased the number people that need them

Nah, organ recipients are usually people with chronic illnesses rather than people who survived traumatic accidents.

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

#99

Post by bad_user »

kgwgk wrote: post #52
yifanl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would food or drinks need advertisement? These are products that have literally infinite demand, nobody can live without them.

Demand for food is not infinite (maybe the word you were looking for was inelastic?). And even if you don’t need ads to create demand for “food” that is a broad category with many competing products from many competing providers.

Interestingly the food industry has perverse incentives ... because humans have a maximum limit of food eaten during the day, big companies like Coca Cola can only grow by encouraging people to eat more.

Since the more people eat, the more they spend on food, the more revenue generated.

Therefore food companies are incentivized to produce highly palatable food that trick the brain into overeating. One common strategy is to combine sugar with fat (think donuts), bonus points if it has caffeine too (chocolate with milk). Such combinations are not very natural. You won't find in nature foods that are high in both sugar and fat. And this kind of processing matters. Think of the difference between cocoa leaves and crack cocaine.

And now that we have an obesity problem, the same companies also sell products for diabetics, or diet products with "zero calories" that are highly processed and may contain substances that are damaging to our gut or general health. It's very profitable to create a problem and then to provide the solution too.

And unfortunately you won't see ads for whole foods.

But you will see whole foods vilified periodically (e.g. starchy plants, meat, etc), with ingenuous food companies jumping to the rescue with highly processed stuff. The ongoing race for "fake meat" makes me cringe.

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

#100

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.

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