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A New Age of Obesity

Lafayette

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From the Guardian:
We’re in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You’d be surprised ...


So what has happened? The light begins to dawn when you look at the nutrition figures in more detail. Yes, we ate more in 1976, but differently. Today, we buy half as much fresh milk per person, but five times more yoghurt, three times more ice cream and – wait for it – 39 times as many dairy desserts. We buy half as many eggs as in 1976, but a third more breakfast cereals and twice the cereal snacks; half the total potatoes, but three times the crisps. While our direct purchases of sugar have sharply declined, the sugar we consume in drinks and confectionery is likely to have rocketed (there are purchase numbers only from 1992, at which point they were rising rapidly.
Perhaps, as we consumed just 9kcal a day in the form of drinks in 1976, no one thought the numbers were worth collecting.) In other words, the opportunities to load our food with sugar have boomed. As some experts have long proposed, this seems to be the issue.

The shift has not happened by accident. As Jacques Peretti argued in his film The Men Who Made Us Fat, food companies have invested heavily in designing products that use sugar to bypass our natural appetite control mechanisms, and in packaging and promoting these products to break down what remains of our defences, including through the use of subliminal scents. They employ an army of food scientists and psychologists to trick us into eating more than we need, while their advertisers use the latest findings in neuroscience to overcome our resistance.

They hire biddable scientists and think tanks to confuse us about the causes of obesity. Above all, just as the tobacco companies did with smoking, they promote the idea that weight is a question of “personal responsibility”. After spending billions on overriding our willpower, they blame us for failing to exercise it.

To judge by the debate the 1976 photograph triggered, it works. “There are no excuses. Take responsibility for your own lives, people!” “No one force feeds you junk food, it’s personal choice. We’re not lemmings.”


We are being had (like guinea-pigs) by an industry the sole pursuit of which is profits, profits, profits.


Typically, when this happens, it's up to LaLaLand on the Potomac to take the cudgel in hand and officiate the correction by means of legislation. But when even that means has been "bought", what's a country to do?


Change governments, that's what ...
 
From the Guardian:
We’re in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You’d be surprised ...




We are being had (like guinea-pigs) by an industry the sole pursuit of which is profits, profits, profits.


Typically, when this happens, it's up to LaLaLand on the Potomac to take the cudgel in hand and officiate the correction by means of legislation. But when even that means has been "bought", what's a country to do?


Change governments, that's what ...


Well...as radical a notion as it may seem to you, you can always say "no".
 
From the Guardian:
We’re in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You’d be surprised ...




We are being had (like guinea-pigs) by an industry the sole pursuit of which is profits, profits, profits.


Typically, when this happens, it's up to LaLaLand on the Potomac to take the cudgel in hand and officiate the correction by means of legislation. But when even that means has been "bought", what's a country to do?


Change governments, that's what ...


When did 'LaLaLand on the Potomac' get (give itself?) the power to correct the pursuit of profits, profits, profits?

I assume that by 'change governments' you mean to amend the constitution adding a new federal power to become our supreme dietary nanny by fiat.

What, exactly, prevents folks in the UK from eating as they once did in 1976? Surely that did not hinge upon what the US government (LaLaLand on the Potomac?) decided or did not decide to do.
 
Well...as radical a notion as it may seem to you, you can always say "no".

Nope, only the (US federal?) government has the power to make any changes in your dietary choices.
 
Nope, only the (US federal?) government has the power to make any changes in your dietary choices.

Silly me. :doh

Thinking for ones self....what was I thinking? :confused:
 
I always admired the mans talent....voice of an angel.

Well you noticed he is good enough that I was watching...but the size of the man is something else....some of these scenes....
 
Well you noticed he is good enough that I was watching...but the size of the man is something else....some of these scenes....

It was....and it greatly contributed to his passing.

I was stationed in Hawaii when he died in '97....the gathering when his ashes were spread on the ocean was fantastic to watch from the shore.
 
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From the Guardian:
We’re in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You’d be surprised ...




We are being had (like guinea-pigs) by an industry the sole pursuit of which is profits, profits, profits.


Typically, when this happens, it's up to LaLaLand on the Potomac to take the cudgel in hand and officiate the correction by means of legislation. But when even that means has been "bought", what's a country to do?


Change governments, that's what ...


Look. Here is a key. Drink only pure water. Eat what comes out of the earth and not from a can or bag. We know the food industry has a science on how to make food where you just can not just one. It takes two to tango. And the other part of the problem is the consumer who is either ignorant or just does not care. Period.

But did you know in some part of the world highly sugared drinks like Coca-Cola is less expensive than potable water?
 
And the other part of the problem is the consumer who is either ignorant or just does not care. Period.

Ignorance is when you live in a country that watches per-capita the most TV of any nation on earth.

Who then, robot-like, buy the junk that is thrown at them on the boob-tube.

How do you stop that? Only by secondary-school education that teaches them that THEY HAVE A CHOICE between a healthy life or one that is much shorter than elsewhere - and good eating habits are the key to that longer life.

Comparing what is comparable: My life-span here in France (where people knew how to eat well before American fast-food hit the market 15 years ago) live four-years longer than in the US. We shall see how well that age-limit holds for this present generation of French youngsters ...
 
When did 'LaLaLand on the Potomac' get (give itself?) the power to correct the pursuit of profits, profits, profits? I assume that by 'change governments' you mean to amend the constitution adding a new federal power to become our supreme dietary nanny by fiat.

You assume wrong. The power to pursue profits is dead easy for any government. It reduces upper-income taxation, and the mad-rush for profits will be on.

More worrisome is the fact that - at the very same time that Reckless Ronnie reduced drastically upper-income taxation - the US went on a market-consolidation binge. Which means far too many markets became vertically integrated by means of "buy-outs".

This reduces competition and enhances profit-margins. Which means YOU THE CONSUMER must pay higher than need be prices. Had more competition existed, prices would obviously be generally lower and consumers better-off with enhanced savings and thus better distribution of Wealth.

Which means this would not have happened:
2DfGB.png
 
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You assume wrong. The power to pursue profits is dead easy for any government. It reduces upper-income taxation, and the mad-rush for profits will be on.

More worrisome is the fact that - at the very same time that Reckless Ronnie reduced drastically upper-income taxation - the US went on a market-consolidation binge. Which means far too many markets became vertically integrated by means of "buy-outs".

This reduces competition and enhances profit-margins. Which means YOU THE CONSUMER must pay higher than need be prices. Had more competition existed, prices would obviously be generally lower and consumers better-off with enhanced savings and thus better distribution of Wealth.

Which means this would not have happened:
2DfGB.png

OK, but what, exactly, does that have to do with personal dietary choices?
 
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