Addictive Food: Tastes so good!

[Exterous]

If you want to argue the USDA being overly generous with the term "food desert" means that availability of quality food isn't a contributing factor to the current state of the health of this country go right ahead.

I would say its overblown as I have shown by example. Do you argue otherwise? If not then what was the purpose of your link to Food Deserts if not to try and support your argument about massive scale? Clearly there are food deserts with superb access to quality foods and produce. I don't think government should legislate because of apathy and - to a large extent the ignorance is self inflicted. The information is on the back labels by law.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I would say its overblown as I have shown by example. Do you argue otherwise? If not then what was the purpose of your link to Food Deserts if not to try and support your argument?

The classification being "overblown" doesn't preclude it from being a contributing factor.

 

[Greenman]

I'm saying that they would make better choices if they could think of it objectively; but people exploit the diference between how we think of things objectively and how think of things in the moment, and because of that exploitation limiting choice based on what is objectively better is a much better option than leaving people subject to the contrived situations/poor heruistics they are lured into.

In the moment, even smart people are cattle. You may think "i won't eat trans-fats" but without product labeling, you'll have a very hard time making the objective decision not to eat trans-fats on a case-by-case basis; and worse than that, people just don't think about almost all of their behavior unless there's some sort of interruption to regular functioning. If you can slip something into the regular function then you can trick people.

Is the choice to enslave another person given by God? How about the choice to trick someone into hurting themselves for your own gain, is that God-given?

It's no one group of people; it's all people (me and you included) that are not good decision makers in the moment: What's worse is psychological research shows that you THINK you make rational decisions in retrospect.

I'm not saying we take away all human choice; i'm saying there are times that power-holders trick the population by appealing to vanity and using psychological tricks. We actually place LOTS of bets on the future, we usually turn it into a 'plan' or 'choice' after the fact inorder to justify our behavior.

I can provide journal citations if you are willing to believe the science that supports my argumentation.

I would like to note that I used to think like you Greenman, but then I read the psychology literature and realized that I'm no different than anyone else: almost all of my life is spend in 'auto pilot' thinking about other things, and not actually making choices.

So we end where we started, you believe government intervention is the solution to the problem of children eating crap and getting fat, I believe involved parents are whats needed.
Sadly, your solution will end up being the one that's implemented, because it allows parents to continue ignoring their children and blaming others for their failure when their kids grow up fat, stupid, and lazy.

 

[Exterous]

The classification being "overblown" doesn't preclude it from being a contributing factor.

I never claimed that it did. However 'overblown' does tend to counter act 'massive' unless you can come up with more accurate supporting evidence for your claim. I do understand that you bundled some other reasons in there to get to 'massive' but, since you are still intent on Food Deserts being a contributing factor, to what degree is this particular instance an issue? From what I see at their site it appears to be a minor issue - barely worth consideration in light of other, much larger factors. Do you agree? If not what counter-claims and supporting evidence do you bring to the table?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I never claimed that it did. However 'overblown' does tend to counter act 'massive' unless you can come up with more accurate supporting evidence for your claim. I do understand that you bundled some other reasons in there to get to 'massive' but, since you are still intent on Food Deserts being a contributing factor, to what degree is this particular instance an issue? From what I see at their site it appears to be a minor issue - barely worth consideration in light of other, much larger factors. Do you agree? If not what counter-claims and supporting evidence do you bring to the table?

Again, "massive" was referring to the combined effect of "ignorance or apathy or the flat out unavailability of real quality food." ie: "People are eating themselves to a (slow and costly) death (from reasons) on a massive scale". I've twice now clarified that statement. Continuing to misrepresent someone's statement is the kind of crap that's supposed to stay on the other forum.

I don't know to what exact degree food deserts specifically are a contributing factor. But anything above 0 makes their inclusion valid. Nor are they all inclusive of availability issues with quality food.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

mandated solution to affect everyone. ... easy to play whack a mole with a big mallet, fixing the world one solution at a time.

it is our place, through government, to solve these problems. Limited, enumerated powers be damned.

After listening to others speak, banning food advertisement targeted at children seems like a reasonable solution that doesn't impact everyone, is a solution to a very specific problem that has major consequences, and regulating pornography over the air is within the fed's power right?

False dichotomy is what weakens our people, and the greatest one used against us is the "need" to act.

Could you detail this a bit more? You seem to be presenting a "freedom v. any action" false dichotomy.

Sadly, your solution will end up being the one that's implemented, because it allows parents to continue ignoring their children and blaming others for their failure when their kids grow up fat, stupid, and lazy.

I don't see any good argumentation that there's anything we can do to change the human condition of perpetual ignorance.

 

[Exterous]

Again, "massive" was referring to the combined effect of "ignorance or apathy or the flat out unavailability of real quality food." ie: "People are eating themselves to a (slow and costly) death (from reasons) on a massive scale". I've twice now clarified that statement. Continuing to misrepresent someone's statement is the kind of crap that's supposed to stay on the other forum.

I don't know to what exact degree food deserts specifically are a contributing factor. But anything above 0 makes their inclusion valid. Nor are they all inclusive of availability issues with quality food.

I clearly stated the following:

I do understand that you bundled some other reasons in there to get to 'massive'

It's disingenuous to characterize my statements as misrepresentations when I actively acknowledge your combination in my reply. I don't know how I could possibly make it clearer that I know you included multiple factors in getting to 'massive' given that I explicitly stated I understand you included multiple factors to get 'massive'. You never provided a breakdown of contribution percents. Did Food Deserts make up 55% of your ill-defined 'massive' or 1%? Should I take a big contention with the inclusion or not? Its the only claim you could even be bothered to try and support so it would tend to follow that it would make up more than an insignificant portion of the contribution math which would justify the investigation into the methodology behind it. So - would you care to provide a breakdown how you reached 'massive' and what you define 'massive' to be?

My contention is the extent to which food deserts contribute to the issue. You say that anything above 0 makes the inclusion valid yet you choose to list food deserts instead of the thousands of other reasons that have a net affect of >0 which would tend to indicate a greater weighting of the issue. However I believe this is a diversion form the main issue much like this debate is a diversion of the main point in this thread. Given that the data is shown to be seriously flawed I would argue that our attention is best focused elsewhere until the data becomes a better representation of an actual issue. If you think the data provided which results in classifications like I showed above does represent an action item that should be given a high priority of consideration - most likely at the expense of other action items - I would greatly disagree with you but I will leave it at that.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I clearly stated the following:



It's disingenuous to characterize my statements as misrepresentations when I actively acknowledge your combination in my reply. I don't know how I could possibly make it clearer that I know you included multiple factors in getting to 'massive' given that I explicitly stated I understand you included multiple factors to get 'massive'. You never provided a breakdown of contribution percents. Did Food Deserts make up 55% of your ill-defined 'massive' or 1%? Should I take a big contention with the inclusion or not? Its the only claim you could even be bothered to try and support so it would tend to follow that it would make up more than an insignificant portion of the contribution math which would justify the investigation into the methodology behind it. So - would you care to provide a breakdown how you reached 'massive' and what you define 'massive' to be?

My contention is the extent to which food deserts contribute to the issue. You say that anything above 0 makes the inclusion valid yet you choose to list food deserts instead of the thousands of other reasons that have a net affect of >0 which would tend to indicate a greater weighting of the issue. However I believe this is a diversion form the main issue much like this debate is a diversion of the main point in this thread. Given that the data is shown to be seriously flawed I would argue that our attention is best focused elsewhere until the data becomes a better representation of an actual issue. If you think the data provided which results in classifications like I showed above does represent an action item that should be given a high priority of consideration - most likely at the expense of other action items - I would greatly disagree with you but I will leave it at that.

"Massive" isn't describing the factors, it's specifically describing the result, which you're still conflating.

I brought up "food deserts" because it's a part of the availability of quality food issue and a little less intuitive to google than "availability of quality food issues."

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Leaves me unsettled that we feel it is our place, through government, to solve these problems. Limited, enumerated powers be damned. False dichotomy is what weakens our people, and the greatest one used against us is the "need" to act.

I defy you to make one argument against allowing kids to watch pornography that I can't make against allowing children to watch advertising that conditions them to eat crappy food.

 

[cwjerome]

With the huge increase on obesity and obesity-related problems in this country, it's not hard to see Ronald McDonald and the Lucky Charms leprechaun as in the same class as Joe Camel.

I will say this for McDonald's, when I was a kid Ronald and all the other characters were in practically every commercial but nowadays I hardly ever see him. I think in the last 10 years I've only seen him in charity-oriented commercials.

 

[Jaskalas]

I defy you to make one argument against allowing kids to watch pornography that I can't make against allowing children to watch advertising that conditions them to eat crappy food.

If parents don't care if their child watches porn, then why would I?

Are children driving themselves to the store to buy themselves this food with their own money? You seem to leave parents out of the equation, as if the advertisement is the end all.

I might have sympathy with this plight, if nothing stood between children and Cheetos. If we are to say children are parentless - then we have FAR greater problems than just food

 

[Jaskalas]

OK, make a suggestion that uses zero government involvement.

I only take exception to federal government involvement. If you want a nanny NY, then go for it. I'll have 49 other choices if I like Cheetos.

 

[techs]

Before reading the NY Times article how many people actually knew the facts about Cheetos? Probably most people only knew they taste good and they are pretty much bad for you if you eat a lot of them.

People don't know the extreme scientific advances in understanding the relationship between food and the brain and how they are engineered into Cheetos.

Since Cheetos affects your brain everytime you eat them the best solution, imo, is that a counter argument should be made at the same time. Label Cheetos as scientifically created to cause you to eat more than is healthy and that eating Cheetos is not good food choice.

Problem solved.

 

[lotus503]

Adults should be able to make their own choices. That said... some of this junk food is cheaper because of subsidies that should be ended.

Children are a different matter. By law they are deemed incapable of making their own decisions, and they are also high susceptible to suggestion. I think it entirely reasonable for the government to put severe restrictions on marketing to them.

With the huge increase on obesity and obesity-related problems in this country, it's not hard to see Ronald McDonald and the Lucky Charms leprechaun as in the same class as Joe Camel.

I agree with this, rather than opt out marketing to kids we need OPT in marketing to kids. I cant think of a single thing marketed directly to kids that is overall beneficial.

 

[Craig234]

In a perfect world, people would get good, accurate info and choose healthy things.

That never happens.

Instead, we're faced with imperfect choices. Everyone likes 'freedom', and there's definitely 'too much' government telling people what to do and not do.

But sometimes there are choices between the government doing more, and the alternative of hundreds of thousands of lives lost to people taking advantage.

For example, when the government knew smoking was killing large numbers of Americans, it could take a stronger action - for example requiring private companies to design their packages with a government mandate to add warnings - or it could take the 'free Americans make their own choices, do nothing' approach with high casualties.

Part of the issue in the politics is simply people's understanding. When people did not know about the drug addictiveness of nicotine, they had a very different view of the choice to smoke than knowing that. When people were still conditioned by decades where a majority smoked and nearly ever 'sexy movie star' did in secretly cigarette company paid product placement that made people still think well of smoking as a 'sexy and desirable' activity that affected the politics also.

It took decades to shift public opinion and overcome those early political problems.

I think the government in our democracy does have a strong obligation to 'do more' in the people's interests on things like this, such as the history with cigarettes - to strike a balance between 'it knows best', which it often does as much as people with parent issues hate to hear that, and the freedoms of people including to to 'wrong' things.

What should be, but isn't, not controversial is for the government to do research and educate the public when it's being lied to or just not informed.

It's often the case that on an issue, people start out with a kind of misguided understanding and later have a better one. For example, in the civil rights movement, many people just viewed it as a 'states versus federal government' states' rights issue without almost any concern for the harm to blacks - something that's greatly changed as more appreciation for equality has come to exist.

This issue on food for many will initially start out as anti-nanny rage, but if people come to understand it differently - with people not appreciating the threat - that can change.

There's a bottom line that not many care about now but could - how many people are killed, how much are healthcare costs increased, for highly profitable 'bad foods'?

One way to look at them is about 'FREEDOM!'; another is to look at them as 'oh, selling really crappy chemical processed food is about corporate profits that kill people'.

It's a balance in democracy, not extremes of nannyism nor laissez-faire.

 

[waggy]

i think the only way to combat this is education.

i knew growing up to not eat shit like this or fast food (except on occasion). Growing up we would go for to Mcdonalds as a treat otherwise it was home made food. Same with candy. we rarely got it.

We do the same with my kids. they know that fast food is not something they should eat. junk food is a snack (usually when we can't find good fruit). and candy? pfft. only at Halloween

kids need to learn that its not healthy and parents need to know its a treat and not a meal.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Since Cheetos affects your brain everytime you eat them the best solution, imo, is that a counter argument should be made at the same time. Label Cheetos as scientifically created to cause you to eat more than is healthy and that eating Cheetos is not good food choice.

Problem solved.

Solved? Heh. I see that as opening Pandora's Box.

How exactly would you draw the line between something "created to cause you to eat more than is healthy" and something that is not? I think it would be extremely difficult.

Who decides what is or is not a "good food choice"?

I buy Cheetos sometimes. I eat some, and so do my kids. Maybe once a month I'll buy a bag or two of the really nasty junk food. It's a nice treat for us. We don't eat them all the time.

The real problem, as is usually the case, is people doing things to excess.

 

[CPA]

If there's a group to blame, it's the government in all this. They are the ones who started pushing (and continue to do so) grains on americans during the 80's - it's been the cornerstone of food pyramid for decades now. What else started around that period and has gotten worse? Yep, American's weight gain. I believe there is a definite correlation to the increased amount of wheat in our diets and weight gain. People complain about sugar and fats, but ignore wheat, which by the way is not the same wheat used 50-60 years ago. It's a modified, bastardized form or its former self.