Obesity problem: Are fast food restaurants responsible or not?

[Moonbeam]

The US should utilize its universities to study and update the most healthy lifestyles people can adopt for a long healthy life and mandate all restaurants to serve food that comports with those guidelines. People are self destructive and need to be protected from themselves. One of the most powerful manifestations of our self destructiveness is our insistence on free choice. We have no idea the psychological forces that control our behavior. They are unconscious and negative. We require outside control to force us to treat ourselves well. Naturally there is a problem that any control we place on ourselves feels just like we do, so it will work to destroy us too. Perhaps the truth is some third way.

 

[Red Dawn]

I still think making those restaurants install mirrored doors is the way to go.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
a lawyer friend (shudder..) of mine once told me that the legal definition of the truth
is whatever a preponderence or people believe to be the truth!

if you allow these lawsuits to procede...lawyers will get rich
"fast-food" will become more expensive..

nobody will lose weight because of these lawsuits

is this what you really want to happen?

Hehe you should ask you "friend" about this old lawyer axiom, (BTW- how can dr have a friend which is a lawyer seems like oil and water) It does'nt matter who is "right", what matters who is willing to spend the most money proving they are "right."

Unfortuatly the United States doesn't have a loser pays unless the lawsuit can be shown to be entirely frivolous (which is very very hard to prove). Bottom line is you can win if you're willing to spend enough on Lawyers. And I suspect if enough inertia grows in the public to hold FF cos responsible the money will be there.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Fencer128

They haven't suppressed a damn thing. They only denied the obvious. Point to a single case in which they stopped a doctor or medical journal from reporting on the health effects of smoking. Just one.

Meanwhile, it's pointless to blame them. Of COURSE they have their own self-interest in mind. When you want health information, you don't go to a bunch of farmers and cigarette rollers, you go to a doctor. Tobacco company research is meaningless.

A lot of research was carried out by the tobacco companies. A lot of it showed very grave health risks. All of this research was vetted by the companies. Things were left out and words were "sanitised" to make the research look less bad or definitive where apporpriate. At the same time the government was putting out the message that smoking was dangerous.

The data on which the governments claims were based was held as "open to interpretation" by the tobacco companies and they did their darndest to put a positive spin on it or to point out that it was not 100% definitive when they sure as hell knew the truth. All of this information in the public domain to not make it as obvious as it should have as to the unequivocal dangers of smoking.

That doesn't mean you can have class action lawsuits from people saying "I never heard that smoking was dangerous" but it does mean that states - for instnce - can sue to recoop losses due to health spending they think could have been brought about by the tobacco propaganda. The tobacco companies can have their own interests in mind - but they still can't lie to the public.

Here is a disturbing link that I got in about 10s on google.

The president of the Australian Medical Association, Victoria, Dr Gerald Segal, described the documents as despicable and said they showed how far a tobacco company would go to spread "misinformation".

and here's one you may find more believable if you disagree with the first.

The Lancet publishes damning evidence of tobacco company manipulation of passive smoking science

Cheers,

Andy

Andy,

You might have a point if the only tobacco research ever done was done by the tobacco companies. However, that just isn't the case. The vast majority of studies done on the effects of tobacco use on human health were done independent of the tobacco companies, published in peer reviewed medical journals and widely reported to the general public.

Misinformation? Come on, what company doesn't lie about their product? Only an idiot would take the biased word of ANY company over that of every freakin' doctor on earth.

Pointing to tobacco companies hiding their own research and lying about health effects is a non-starter. It just does NOT fly when the health dangers of smoking have been widely reported, and thus common knowledge for 50+ years.

Meanwhile, the studies on the dangers of "ETS" overwhemingly cannot find a link to illness. In fact, the EPA got in a lot of trouble by picking a small minority of studies and building a report around it. The very same report that has led to smoking bans all over the country.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The US should utilize its universities to study and update the most healthy lifestyles people can adopt for a long healthy life and mandate all restaurants to serve food that comports with those guidelines. People are self destructive and need to be protected from themselves. One of the most powerful manifestations of our self destructiveness is our insistence on free choice. We have no idea the psychological forces that control our behavior. They are unconscious and negative. We require outside control to force us to treat ourselves well. Naturally there is a problem that any control we place on ourselves feels just like we do, so it will work to destroy us too. Perhaps the truth is some third way.

Say hello to the elitist, authoritarian liberal.

Oh, and welcome to 1984.

 

[Fencer128]

Andy,

You might have a point if the only tobacco research ever done was done by the tobacco companies. However, that just isn't the case. The vast majority of studies done on the effects of tobacco use on human health were done independent of the tobacco companies, published in peer reviewed medical journals and widely reported to the general public.

Misinformation? Come on, what company doesn't lie about their product? Only an idiot would take the biased word of ANY company over that of every freakin' doctor on earth.

Pointing to tobacco companies hiding their own research and lying about health effects is a non-starter. It just does NOT fly when the health dangers of smoking have been widely reported, and thus common knowledge for 50+ years.

Meanwhile, the studies on the dangers of "ETS" overwhemingly cannot find a link to illness. In fact, the EPA got in a lot of trouble by picking a small minority of studies and building a report around it. The very same report that has led to smoking bans all over the country.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one!

The tobacco companies took "lying about their product" to a whole new level!

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Moonbeam]

Amused:

Say hello to the elitist, authoritarian liberal.

Oh, and welcome to 1984.
---------------
Amused, you perhaps forgot to read what I said and just knee jerked. How does the following correspond with your claim above?:
--------
Moonbeam: Naturally there is a problem that any control we place on ourselves feels just like we do, (referencing our self destructiveness) so it will work to destroy us too. Perhaps the truth is some third way.
-------------------
Some third way, Amused.

 

[Alistar7]

Obesity problem: Are fast food restaurants responsible or not?

Unless you have video footage of Ronald McDonald shoving a big mac down your fat throat you wouldn't get a dime with me on that jury.

They are just as responsible as gun manufactures should be for the willfull actions of those that use a gun in the commision of a crime.

 

[Moonbeam]

Why should people have a right to kill themselves. Who pays for their funeral, their medical care as they die, who takes care of their kids. Premature death places a burden on society and robs it of a full live of taxes. Should not the state be obligated to organize itself to maximize life and profit? If not why. How do you permit irresponsibility that others don't have to pick up the pieces for, go through the population and cull the fat at an early age before they've had a chance to waste a public education?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why should people have a right to kill themselves. Who pays for their funeral, their medical care as they die, who takes care of their kids. Premature death places a burden on society and robs it of a full live of taxes. Should not the state be obligated to organize itself to maximize life and profit? If not why. How do you permit irresponsibility that others don't have to pick up the pieces for, go through the population and cull the fat at an early age before they've had a chance to waste a public education?

It may sound good on the surface, like most other socialistic philosophies do, but in the end, only freedom is given up. Some governments have an endless appetite for personal liberties, and I guarantee that if we let them take away some of our rights (the right to choose what we eat), then other rights will begin to be taken away at an ever increasing speed. I guess this doesn't matter to you if you don't mind being a mindless sheep that goes along with whatever the government says. What if the government also came up with a "Good" excuse to take away our freedom of speech? How would you like that, Moonbeam? Would you enjoy not being able to use up with your endless supply of "Gore won, get over it" posts?

Anyway, short of putting police officers (or hidden cameras) in every room of every house, and monitoring every single square foot of outdoor earth constantly, you're not going to be able to enforce the eating regulations. In the same way that criminals will find a way to get guns even if everyone is supposedly banned from having them, people who lack self control and have a compulsion toward eating will find ways to eat too much.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Amused:

Say hello to the elitist, authoritarian liberal.

Oh, and welcome to 1984.
---------------
Amused, you perhaps forgot to read what I said and just knee jerked. How does the following correspond with your claim above?:
--------
Moonbeam: Naturally there is a problem that any control we place on ourselves feels just like we do, (referencing our self destructiveness) so it will work to destroy us too. Perhaps the truth is some third way.
-------------------
Some third way, Amused.

No, the first way. Individual responsibility, and individual freedom. You want to throw this away because a minority are irresponsible and/or do not live their lives the way you feel they should.

There is no "third way" moonie. There is freedom, or there is not.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Fencer128

Andy,

You might have a point if the only tobacco research ever done was done by the tobacco companies. However, that just isn't the case. The vast majority of studies done on the effects of tobacco use on human health were done independent of the tobacco companies, published in peer reviewed medical journals and widely reported to the general public.

Misinformation? Come on, what company doesn't lie about their product? Only an idiot would take the biased word of ANY company over that of every freakin' doctor on earth.

Pointing to tobacco companies hiding their own research and lying about health effects is a non-starter. It just does NOT fly when the health dangers of smoking have been widely reported, and thus common knowledge for 50+ years.

Meanwhile, the studies on the dangers of "ETS" overwhemingly cannot find a link to illness. In fact, the EPA got in a lot of trouble by picking a small minority of studies and building a report around it. The very same report that has led to smoking bans all over the country.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one!

The tobacco companies took "lying about their product" to a whole new level!

No, politicians and activists have that prize by a long shot.

Cheers,

Andy

Cheers

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Fencer128
The tobacco companies took "lying about their product" to a whole new level!

No, politicians and activists have that prize by a long shot.

I thought that if there were a competition, there would be a tie between the two.

 

[Moonbeam]

There is no "third way" moonie. There is freedom, or there is not.
----------------------------
What is freedom? Is a man free who does not know what he feels or why? Is a person from a sick home filled with repressed desires free to make rational choices? They conception of a libertarian world is an idealized fantasy, Amused, in my opinion. Some third way. For the left and the right, the black and the white, always some third way.

 

[JellyBaby]

I believe restaurants are fairly safe while fast food joints are not. Why? Lawyers dine at former, never at the later.

On the freedom issue, I believe it equates to self-choice. You can be completely free to make choices or you can be prevented from making any decision for yourself or somewhere in between.

An elitist ruling class having the "freedom" to make choices for others doesn't count.

Libertarians seek to increase personal choice but nowhere have I read they seek what would lead to anarchy.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Let me get this straight -
If we take those Mobile Laboratory Vehicles, and use all of them -
we could sell fattening junkfood, Burgers, Fries, Syntho-Shakes,
and other miracle products of the petrochemical industry.

We could have our own 'Abduls' which is kinda like their Ronald.

17 Vehicles would be a decent start for a venture, and after all they would be
fulfilling ShrubCo prophecy of carring the materials for cultural quisine attacks.

And at the same time rushing humanitarian relief to them in the name of God.
To name a proffit on their needs.
Funny how much you need in a bombed city.

 

[Moonbeam]

I want Limewiego Kaeseroliat served in restaurants I go to. I'm not free, damn it. I can't have what I want.

 

[Chris A]

And I say bring back the 99 cent Whoppers.. That was a damn good month

 

[Fencer128]

Originally posted by: Chris A
And I say bring back the 99 cent Whoppers.. That was a damn good month

Fast food - even with my gym regime and my (usually) fairly healthy eating - even then its occasionally one of my failings! MAybe its those burgers I ate as a kid and loved so much (but then I remember Ronald McDonald so vivdly that the corporate conditioning machine must have worked well)

Cheers,

Andy

 

[CaptnKirk]

So much more appropriate if the Clown from Spawn were to replace Ronald McDonald.
More truth in advertising, you know.

 

[Moonbeam]

I wish you wouldn't mention the clown from Spawn.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Sunner
I eat rather crappy food, and seeing as Im a pretty big guy, I eat alot of it.

But Im not fat, I have a few extra kg's to spare, but they're slowly going away, cause I actually get off my ass and get some exercise, gym a few times a week, and badminton, great exercise. Badminton is alot of fun, and gymming before lunch makes the afternoon at work so much better.

Keeping in shape is an added bonus.

People who wanna blame McDonalds for their obesity are pathetic.
Besides, McDonalds sucks, their burgers taste like $hit.

Pigging out on Lutefish and Swedish Meatballs huh Sunner?

Want some fermented baltic herring?

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
There is no "third way" moonie. There is freedom, or there is not.
----------------------------
What is freedom? Is a man free who does not know what he feels or why? Is a person from a sick home filled with repressed desires free to make rational choices? They conception of a libertarian world is an idealized fantasy, Amused, in my opinion. Some third way. For the left and the right, the black and the white, always some third way.

That's the elitist authoritarian in you, Moonie. You earnestly believe everyone else cannot make their own choices. You believe only you, and a select few, are enlightened enough to see this, and therefore the unwashed masses must be cared for by your ilk.

Freedom is not an "idealized fantasy," moonie. It's being left alone by people like you who believe they know better than the masses, and therefore feel they must (s)mother them.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby


Libertarians seek to increase personal choice but nowhere have I read they seek what would lead to anarchy.

Correct. While I do not aggree 100% with the current libertarian platform, it DOES include a central government whose sole purpose is to protect individual rights.

Rand said it best:

"...a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare."

In other words, anarchy cannot last long at all. It will end as soon as the first bully takes control.

 

[Fencer128]

"...a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare."

In other words, anarchy cannot last long at all. It will end as soon as the first bully takes control.

Using the term "government" in a looser sense than used above, can't the same point be argued for the international community?

Cheers,

Andy