Warning: Your ass is too big! - Page 2

You are reaching. Misrepresenting? Are they lying? Are people all just too stupid to see past marketing representations and claims? Is that it?


- Link?
- Unprotected? Which kids? Yours? Not mine.
- Don't eat it then. We have no self-control?

Well, for sure I don't find obesity attractive.

So?

I am still not in a rage about it .


And actually- people being healthy benefits everyone- not just themselves. See my response to Chris where I expound upon that.

But this reasoning is not sufficient justification to limit another person's freedom to do what they wish with their own bodies.

I totally agree with you. It should have been done a long time ago. I really adjusted my diet to completely avoid that and high fructose syrup a while ago, and it's nice to see companies catching up due to bad press raising awareness. Before that they just labeled their food fat free even though trans fat was in the product. Passing laws against it sort of raises the social conscious level about the food people eat. It had a halo effect- even walmart is selling organic labeled food. THE FDA really fucked up on this. But I am happy it's headed in the right direction. BTw- if you want to eat trans fat just to prove a point, that's ridiculous. BTW_ that no trans fat badge doesn't mean there is 0 in there. It just has to be below a very small amount to earn that badge. You really have to check to see if there is anything hydrogenated or partially so to really know.

Like I said earlier- I live in Marin county. Go look it up. It has all kinds of incentives to ride your bike to work- including an amazing system of bike paths that could take you to wine country. Most was built from federal grants and voter based tax initiatives. And it shows- on any given day- especially a nice sunny day- you'll see crowds upon crowds of people running, playing soccer in the many parks, biking- there are many state parks - including Mt. Tam to go and ride on trails- and it shows in how in shape people are around here. People are generally very friendly, happy and in great shape. The neighborhoods are amazing.

As far as extra taxes- they sure beat the medicare and disability taxes you end up paying to subsidize all these obese people's eating habits. Not only in cost, but in the health of our country.

Do you think heroin should be illegal?

Probably not. No.

I'm not sure you really do...


If you mean governmen intervention, I disagree.


See...that wasn't so hard. No government nanny required.


Once again...perfect. Companies responding to the market.


Perhaps. But what difference does it make to you, and what right do you have to forcibly prevent me from doing so?


Glad to here that tax money was taken from me to benefit you. Congratulations.

Currently illegal drugs should be made legal, but prohibited from sale to minors.

Chris Cuilla:


If there is something to "see past" are they being honest?

Why should corporations have the freedom to be even slightly dishonest in the way their product is portrayed? This is the question you are avoiding. You want me to pretend that corporate marketing is something inalienable like an individual's right to practice religion.


Not that it will do any good, but here you go.


Kids in general.
Should we market pornography to kids? Guns? Cigarettes? Alcohol? If not, why not? And if not, why should junk/fast food be allowed?

You are for government regulation, and all your "nanny state" rhetoric is a mask behind which you hide when you don't want to bother thinking critically.


"Self-control" is not a universal concept that everyone has. Feelings of hunger are based in chemicals and many people do not feel hunger the same way. Some people <b>cannot</b> ever get the "full" signal. And there are spectrums from minor to extreme.

Why do people think the body is a simple machine that is produced like an engine on an assembly line, all working the same?

I don't know. You're the one that made the claim. I am suggesting that I trust people to be able to see past anything that might be "misleading" without being an outright lie. Lies and direct deception are certainly a different matter.


Tell you what, you quantify "slightly dishonest" for me, then we might have something to talk about. Until then, you are hand-waving.


Well, I think you are going straw man here. What I have said is that people should be free to engage in free, honest and voluntary exchanges. Should corporations be allowed to lie and deceieve and defraud. No, of course not. Nor should people...and after all corporations are simply a proxy for people (its investors).


I'll check it out. BTW...people are known to be addicted to both pornography and sex. Should these be banned or regulated as well? People get addicted to gambling as well. Alchohol (we tried banning that once...didn't work very well). Etc.


Ah..."kids in general"...got it.

Tell you what. I'll protect mine. You protect yours. Etc....


I certainly think, reasonably so, that children are an execption to the idea that adults should be allowed to engage in free, honest, voluntary exchanges. Children certainly should be protected, and the guardian is the parent. Any adult attempting to enter into an exchange with a child would be violating this principle. Advertising to children doesn't really qualify. Unless mom and dad let junior have the credit card and free reign. Then it is really mom and dad that are responsible for abdicating their responsibiities for protecting their children.


Well I am certainly not an anarchist. I do believe in a (much) smaller government than we current "enjoy". The primary function of government should be to protect its citizens and their property from violence, force, coercion as perpetrated by others. When you start moving beyond this, things get shaky quickly. I see the government having a role to adjudicate these kinds of violations and to protect the rights of its citizenry. When we get into things like banning trans-fats and mandating warning tags on clothing we've moved well beyond this...but it was wall quite predictable...because as soon as we decide that the government had a role in protecting people from themselves and regulating what they can put into their bodies, there are really no logical limits.


Quite incorrect sir. But if it makes you feel better...go ahead and believe it.

In fact, I have been thinking critically about these questions for quite some time. I have been reading. Thinking. Trying to understand. In the end I find it difficult to find justification for me (or anyone else) to have the right to use the force of government to restrict the freedoms of people short of preventing them from doing direct harm to another person or their property. Most things that we regulate through the government these days don't really meet this criteria upon a closer...ahem...critical...evaluation.


I know...I know...we have to protect people from themselves.

Please tell me that isn't the best you have to support the addiction claim?!?!

A handful of anecdotal stories. The one hard scientific thing (the dopamine angle) is qualified as follows: "Its not clear, according to Volkow, if all this is the cause or the consequence of obesity."



In either case there are certainly other substances and/or activities (sex, porn, alchohol, shopping, money, etc.) that are addictive. Should we ban them? Restrict them severly? How? Where?

Laws should be tightened so that ALL companies that offer food for sale have to show nutritional information on the packaging. Random checks by government nutrition labs accompanied by stiff fines for dishonesty or non-compliance should follow.

From there, we can let the Market sort things out, but certainly not before.

This question is immensely complicated, and I don't think it's simply a matter of individual behaviors. The English reaction there (and that horrid jab at Dawn French! Poor Vicar of Dibley!) is tied into the national health service, and while dmz wants to claim it hopelessly unsolvable as framed, the fact of the matter is that the health care system in England means that the gov't IS involved in this, like it or not.

Our notions of weight are a moving target, and they are tied to assumptions about "moral fiber" and willpower and character and class. All but the last are relatively new, since weight and ideals of beauty have always been tied to class (rubenesque women are appealing in a culture where their weight suggests they have money and leisure; fit bodies are appealing now because they suggest someone has the leisure time to work out).

Are you thinking of widespread personal weakness, genetics-tied biological weakness suffered by all or part of our species, or cultural weakness from lack of knowledge or unhealthy ideals? These are all very different things.
I have spent quite a bit of time with psychology, biology, elementary economics and game theory and introspection to understand why I do what I do, how I'm "wired". Are you suggesting that I can only be truly responsible after this process? If my previous understanding was insufficient, then I would think am at least responsible for actively furthering my understanding. If I wouldn't try to do that, I'd be responsible for my own ignorance and by proxy the poor decisions I make.
Sugar has always triggered insulin spikes. Eating lots of carbs and energy in general has always made you fat unless accompanied by a huge energy sink such as physical labor. What's the crime of the current fast food - tasting good? You know that's addictive too.
"Horribly unhealthy", huh. In an otherwise healthy lifestyle, will occasional fast food meals have a tangible downside to you? I think not.

Here's something else -- you mentioned [British] health care. Let's through in the American attitude on health care -- doctors as pill fairies. I think there is a 'hey, I'm morbidly obese, so what, the docs can treat my diabetes, hypertension.....' attitude that is so American. 'If I want health, I'll just buy it' -- it's so hooked into things that you will never separate it from the problem.

That's another all-time best post I've ever read.

It's simple. Americans need to eat less bread and more lean meat and sub veggies for bread. The food pyramid is WRONG. Of course they also need to move more, but rom my reading so far it seems what you eat is even more important than excercising. And I don't LIKE lifting weights. But as someone else said, I do love doing things outdoors such as mountain biking. Life is what you make it. If you want to eat chips and watch TV, great. I just don't want to pay for your healthcare. Isn't obesity classified as a disease now? I wonder what implications that has upon the taxpayer, footing Medicare/Medicaid bills. I'm getting more conservative by the second...it's kinda scary. Am I a jerk? Maybe. It's actually easy to eat right though. Don't go in to the aisles in the grocery store. Stay at the edges; buy meat, produce, other fresh food. Yes, I just read The Zone, perhaps it's apparent! It's all about the carbs. You should eat 3 g of protein for every 4 g of carbs.
Another thing I heard is to eat 80% of what you WANT to eat. I've been doing that for a few weeks and it is working. After ten minutes, the delayed hunger sensor kicks in and tells you "OK, you're full." And I don't feel bloated. I've been eating 80% of what I would have been eating, for three weeks. I feel the same. Wasn't hard. Try it. It's hard for about 10 minutes and then you're in the clear.

Chris Cuilla:

Portraying fast food as part of an active, healthy lifestyle is "slightly dishonest". Having nothing but thin, upper-middle class people shown as customers is "slightly dishonest".


You are fine with assigning human rights to an invisible, intangible, unaccountable proxy? Even when those rights conflict with the health and safety of actual humans?


What I find really amazing is that you left the last sentence of that paragraph off, which reads: " But what is clear, she says, is that obese people need to eat more to feel satisfied."

You chopped that last sentence off the paragraph, why? Because you are being dishonest in your characterization of the research.


You did not answer my question. It is "yes" or "no" followed by an explanation; instead you ran for cover and hid. Stand up and make your point.
Should we market pornography to kids? Guns? Cigarettes? Alcohol? If not, why not?


So we should be able to sell anything that is ingestible?
Should I be legally allowed to sell bathtub meth to kindergartners? To adults?

Why not try answering one of these questions with a straight answer sometime?


Gon:


They are all different things, and I do not understand why I can only choose one.


No, as I said much earlier, this kind of attitude is fine on a personal level, but it falls apart at the level of personal policy. I can make decisions for myself based on half-information and maybe get it right, but when it comes to making decisions that impact hundreds of millions, we had better do the research and think about it.


If only we used actual sugar.

Our perspective as a culture is completely screwed up; our attitude should be trying to help the actual physical people in our society, not haranguing them while trying our best to apologize for fast food and junk food producers.


We do not lead physical lifestyles that allow fast food and health, how can you not see that? How can you see a nation drowning in its own fat, buying diet and self-help books as fast as they can be printed, and still think this is a matter of individuals making some different choices.

Our entire economy is geared to remove all physical labor from our jobs. Also, our economy is geared to have us work a whole lot of hours. Our whole system is geared to keep us sedentary and eating crap for food.

You can acknowledge the reality of the situation or you can shake your tiny fist at the oncoming train. Make a choice.

Why not heavily regulate fast/junk food to protect against the very real crisis facing our country? If you acknowledge that it is a problem, why not regulate the corporations?

Also, why is this false choice dilemma presented that either we regulate fast/junk food corporations or make cultural changes that lead to a healthier lifestyle. Let's do both!

And you believe that people are too stupid to see through any marketing and draw their own conclusions and make their choices about what to eat, how much and from where. Its really that simple. Deny it if you like, but that is the essence of what you are saying here.


You have erected this vague notion of "conflict with the health and safety of actual humans"...are corporations forcing anyone to purchase and use their products or are people voluntarily purchasing them and using them? NOTE: This same issue would exist whether it was a corporation or an individual selling the products.


What I find really amazing is the rhetorical bait and switch you are attempting by trying to assume and/or imply that this applies only to fast food or some such thing.


No. Because they are children.

Now my turn...many things can be addictive (sex, porn, alchohol, pharmaceuticals, TV, shopping, money, etc.) to some people, what should the government do about these things?


You first.

Chris Cuilla:


I do not think it is a matter of stupidity, I think it is a matter of psychological training, practical pressures, and physiological imperatives.


You are creating a false choice: either corporations are "forcing" people to do something -or- they are to be held unaccountable. The line between being forced to do something and volunteering to do something is blurred by advertising and addiciton. My choice to not buy a PS3 is not the same as a heroin addict's choice to buy heroin.

Further, quitting bad food is not the same as quitting drugs, because you have to have food.


What on earth do you mean by this?


Should McDonald's and Coca-Cola be allowed to advertise to children? If so, why them and not RJ Reynolds?


We already regulate pharmaceuticals, pornography, and alcohol.
I do not know what mechanism we would use to solve TV, shopping, money, or sex addition, and you have not made any case at all that those addictions present the danger to the health and safety of Americans that obesity presents.

Now answer my questions:
Should I be able to sell methamphetamines to adults? Heroin? Crack? AK-47s? Teenagers?

Let me ask this straight out...do you believe that people are capable of making choices on their own regardless of what advertising might try and persuade them to do?


And you have now evaded answering twice.


You continue with this addiction red herring. We're getting nowhere.


Exactly why I said. You are attempting to make it about fast food...when it is really about food generally. Some people become addicted to eating or consuming food. OK. What are we (or the government) to do about this?


But these things are all still (easily) available to people that might become addicted. So what is your point?


You haven't really made any case at all. But I see it is about the degree of addiction or what-not. This is really getting to be a pretty weak argument (well it started out that way and has really improved).

Why don't you simply admit the fact that this is all merely a smoke screen to disguise the fact that you are moralizing here and that you believe that you (through the government) feel you have the right to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? That's really what this boils down to. I mean addiction or not, you have yet to make any coherent argument for the government's (or your) right to tell me what I can and cannot freely and voluntarily consume into my own body.

Indeed. That's a function of our increasingly mechanized view of the bodyit's just a bunch of parts to be tuned up/fixed/repaired.

I wouldn't mind applying that view of the body at all, if only we we're far, far better at manipulating and fixing our bodies, and at a reasonable cost, than we are today.

Of course you don't mind it. You're in the middle of an age where it seems completely intuitive.

But the implications are pretty serious: the body becomes a disposable object that can be abused/altered/changed/improved at will. A while back, Harper's printed an essay called "Dr. Daedalus" that was about this kind of thinga plastic surgeon who wants to give people wings and stuff like that.

so what 'harm' would be done by goverments banning all the crap artificial chemicals that go into our food?

It requires additional bureaucracy, such as officials that have to perform regular checks, which in turn costs everyone (including those who eat responsibly) more.

as i thought, it would be a case of adding a few cents to a loaf of bread in the short term, is this cost not offset by falling heath care costs related to obesity?

That's quite possible, yes.

so in actual fact, there is no harm in telling greedy faceless corperations that they aren't allowed to include toxic chemicals in food that slowly kill us?

Yes, there is. I've pointed it out. Whether it outweighs other costs we currently have is another question entirely.

Fast food, toxic food, is a bigger threat to national security than dopey arabs welled up in caves.

Corperations dont give a flying fcuk, if it were legal to use rat poison instead of flour they would use it if it added a few bucks to the bottom line.

Im sure certain people wouldn't see a problem with this, aslong as the concept of 'freedom to eat shit' was upheld.

Chris Cuilla:


Absolutely, yes, but you cannot just say "Aha! People can make choices therefore let's shut down all thought and put it on their shoulders to fight whatever temptation and addiction might be thrown their way!"
The complexity of this answer comes in to the level of difficulty people have making certain choices (or, more importantly, avoiding poor choices) given a certain set of circumstances.

I think it is important that we examine the full nature of these choices and how different choices are influenced.


You were begging the question by creating a false choice, which I pointed out. It is akin to me asking: "Do you rape puppies or children!?" and then accusing you of not answering the question when you (rightly) respond: "Neither of those options are correct, so I cannot choose them."

I do not know what you mean by "force", so I cannot answer the question. Further, any notion of "force" is irrelevant and a hyperbolic way to try and fling the debate into hysterical nonsenseland.


Are you saying that people do not get addicted to certain chemicals within food?


"Fast/junk food" is what I say repeatedly, actually, not just "fast" food. And the problem does not lie in food in general, it is the tremendous amount of additives used in fast/junk foods. Yes, some people will become addicted to normal, healthy foods, but the addition of the various chemicals increases that risk.

My proposal is simple: Much as the government does with other industries, regulate the use of chemicals in food and gear the regulation towards the idea of making sure that the food sold to the citizens of this nation is not dangerous and is as healthy as possible.


When have I mentioned what people are allowed to eat?

I have repeatedly talked about regulating the corporations and industries. Never once have I said that citizens should not be allowed to eat what they want. I want to restrict the rights of corporations, not people.


midwinter:


Our body is just a bunch of parts that work together to do stuff. We are a biological machine. An extremely complex and fragile biological machine, but a biological machine nonetheless.

people evolved to crave high-energy food, because for most of our history, there hasn't been much of a supply of this, the amount of chemical shit in food these days only seeks to enslave us to becoming addicted to our craving.

The 'freedom to chose' in this is BS. Addiction and cravings aren't freedom at all, its corperate assisted slavery for dollars.

Examine away. I have no problem with that. No burying head in the sand. Inform away. That's great and should be encouraged! But the more the actual responsibility is taken away from people, the worse they will get at it. There is not a required role for government here.


Don't be silly. It is a simple question...is anyone being forced to buy these products and services.





Nope.


When you say that government must regulate what goes into food.


But this is merely indirect regulation of what people can/cannot eat.

Err. Doesn't the government already regulate what goes into food?

no, it is saying, you can have your mcdonalds burger - but they are not allowed to lace it with shit that is known to kill you or make you seriously ill. It doesn't taste any different.

Who exactly loses out here?

Yes it does. But that is circular logic. It is using regulating something as justifcation for regulating something. I am trying to challenge the basic premise that the regulation is necessary in the first place. There seems to be a widespread, tacit presumption that "there oughta be a law!" or "the gov't oughta do sumthin'!". I am questioning this presumption.

Furthermore, using that argument simply lends creedance to the slippery slope argument which says that if you do X, eventually you'll do X + 1, then X + 2, etc. Well, when use the fact that you have already done X to justify X + 1...you are on the slippery slope.

And would you remove these regulations so that a company could put whatever they felt like into food?

Mmmmm. Razor blade pie......

a quick search revealed that "ephedra" and "sulfites" are banned from being added to foods, and some colour additives have restricted use.

Perhaps Chris would want to overturn the ban on sulfites so that people have choice and freedom to eat something that kills them?

but then every food manufacturer would use them, and thus the choice to select healthy food would be an illusion, and you would lose freedom from sulfite additives. So infact, having strict restrictions on junk food additives, increases your freedom and as a bonus helps to keep you healthier, while removing restrictions only serves to enslave you to chemical hell and make you ill.

I wonder why some people *always* get everything back to front? Is it a joke?

McDonald's burgers are laced with no such substances.