WHO: Governments should regulate fast food to slow obesity

I think people need to just be more accountable and stop making excuses.

This 10000000000X

Well, they aren't. So now what?

How do you intend to make them "feel the weight of their decisions" when it's you and me who are paying for them?

Exactly why you get government out of the picture....

Get them out
Let insurance companies evaluate the person and then set the cost of their policy accordingly.
Let their be competition.....
If the insurance company comes to said obese person and say, you know if you lose 50 lbs and keep it off, we will drop your premiums $50 a month.....
There is incentive...and the obese person can make the choice.

That is what happens with auto insurance....

Should not I pay more for auto insurance if I have had multiple accidents, multiple tickets.....
vs. you who have had no accidents or speeding tickets??

So you think that if we get government out of the insurance industry, insurance companies will start charging fat people higher premiums, and that will take care of anything?

Is that your plan? That's what you think?

Obesity is the biggest SCAM in the USA! if people knew that NOT all calories are created equally we wouldnt have such an obesity epedemic.
There are economic issues for this for this scam, there is BIG money to make in this scam, its an illusion! It all started with NIXON when he decided to make food prices more stable and then in the 80s when he food pyramid was made scam all you need to know is the truth and lots of people dont want to hear it.

Ummm. what?

Fast food doesn't hold a monopoly on high calorie, unhealthy foods anyway. Most any restaurant is going to have similar offerings in that regard, and people can and will make their own junk food.

Very true. My husband and I ate out at Cheesecake Factory a few years ago only to be completely shocked to realize that for our lunch we ate almost 3,000 calories each. Yikes! McDonald's would have been more reasonable at that point.

the bread pudding at Famous Dave's is 1100 calories just by itself. The "half serving" is over 600.

damn it jonnythan why did you alert me to this trainwreck?

I am lonely and weak.

I can fix you *eyebrow wriggle*

Rriow.

It's okay, I'm a doctor.

What happened to individual responsibility and self control?

You (we) are not smart enough for individual responsibility, liberty or self control; that's why we need more government, more regulations, more control!




























/sarc (just in case)

How do you intend to make them "feel the weight of their decisions" when it's you and me who are paying for them?

Exactly why you get government out of the picture....

Get them out
Let insurance companies evaluate the person and then set the cost of their policy accordingly.
Let their be competition.....
If the insurance company comes to said obese person and say, you know if you lose 50 lbs and keep it off, we will drop your premiums $50 a month.....
There is incentive...and the obese person can make the choice.

That is what happens with auto insurance....

Should not I pay more for auto insurance if I have had multiple accidents, multiple tickets.....
vs. you who have had no accidents or speeding tickets??

So you think that if we get government out of the insurance industry, insurance companies will start charging fat people higher premiums, and that will take care of anything?

Is that your plan? That's what you think?

Obesity is the biggest SCAM in the USA! if people knew that NOT all calories are created equally we wouldnt have such an obesity epedemic.
There are economic issues for this for this scam, there is BIG money to make in this scam, its an illusion! It all started with NIXON when he decided to make food prices more stable and then in the 80s when he food pyramid was made scam all you need to know is the truth and lots of people dont want to hear it.

please elaborate.
and with references, preferably.

Exactly why you get government out of the picture....

Get them out
Let insurance companies evaluate the person and then set the cost of their policy accordingly.
Let their be competition.....
If the insurance company comes to said obese person and say, you know if you lose 50 lbs and keep it off, we will drop your premiums $50 a month.....
There is incentive...and the obese person can make the choice.

That is what happens with auto insurance....

Should not I pay more for auto insurance if I have had multiple accidents, multiple tickets.....
vs. you who have had no accidents or speeding tickets??

Health Insurance companies have been doing this for a while with HRA and HSA policies. I work for Anthem and if your BMI is below a certain level you get more money added to your account, or if you lose a certain percentage of your body weight within a year and keep it off they do the same. Some are not always very forthcoming with the information or you have to hunt for it and sign onto their website, answer questions, etc. They do it for non-smokers too.

Awesome thread...there is so much I want to comment on and don't think I can "quote" all the particular posts.

Government should not intervene except to ensure the safety of the initial product. A Whopper and Fries as lunch is not going to make you gain 10 pounds. Every day, every meal, maybe. Government should ensure that there is not arsenic, etc, in said Whopper. Our government is batting for both teams in this fight considering the heavy subsidies that corn (i.e. high fructose corn syrup) gets in the Farm Bills of the past decades and then to consider legislating against certain types of foods/drinks.

I think the argument that "my healthcare costs are going up" is futile. Healthcare costs will go up because the insurance companies are getting away with it. They have been for years. Hey, government, if you want to regulate something try that first. People are placing the blame on obesity (or fat people=me) because it's easy. I doubt that too many people would say, "well $%&^ you cancer patient, you made my rate go up". Even if people weren't obese, or there wasn't an "obesity epidemic", they would blame it on something else. It's easy money being made for them.

On education and the food in schools, I could go on for a while. I found, when I was teaching (that adventure could be a whole other post), that the biggest problem was not the "crap, unhealthy food" that everyone endlessly goes on about, but was hunger. The kids that I taught were hungry. Plain and simple. How many of you are in good moods when you are hungry? Can you get a lot done? I know when I am hungry, really hungry, I cannot think of much else except when I am going to eat next. Instead of all this snobbish rhetoric about how many fruits and vegetables should be on your plate or kids are too fat, we need to ensure that these children are more to eat then just the school lunch. This is a real problem.

Trying to ensure health or morality through legislation does not work. Anyone hear of prohibition? That was a success. We've made every "bad" drug illegal. There is a huge drug problem.

Someone posted something along the lines of "meh...wth....I like Taco Bell". YES. You do not want to limit my accessibility to crunchy tacos. REVOLUTION.

It's a little creepy to me that government wants to tell what to eat. I've always found the guidelines a little "Fahrenheit 451" - ish. What next? As far as my tax dollars going to "fight" the obesity epidemic, then give us a checklist of things to approve when I pay taxes. I'd check the obesity box before the current decade plus war box, or the ridiculous education/testing box, or the let's do a study on how paint dries box.

OK, I'm stepping off my soap box now. Thanks.

Cholesterol is as much genetic as anything else. Charge people more for insurance because of their genes?

And what about BMI? Charge athletes more because their BMI is high? Or will you force everyone to submit to body fat testing?

It's not simple to just charge higher-risk people more for health insurance. There's also a great deal of societal resistance to the idea.

I didn’t want to get distracted by arguing about which factors should be chosen and yet here I am doing it! The health insurance companies have a wealth of data and highly paid medical professionals, that will add whatever extenuating controls they want for those that fail.

If you fail the BMI test, allow for a body fat test appeal (that’s what they did when I was in the military for the big boys). Or allow for the insured to show progress in areas with significant genetic influence, i.e., even if your cholesterol is high, you get credit if you maintain or reduce it.

My insurance company gives me a discount for keeping a low BMI, low cholesterol, normal BP and by getting a minimal amount of steps / exercise minutes as measured by a pedometer that automatically synchs to their website. The latter may be upsetting to people; if so, don’t wear it, and pay more money. I have better things to spend my money on, so I wear it. It is entirely the choice of the insured.

There is no such thing as "unbiased". It's your biases that cause you to discount the message you didn't want to hear.

We all have biases. When you can follow the research in spite of your own personal bias... and change your preconceived notions... that's when you're on to something.

Hey I spoke the same party line as you did 18 months ago. Follow the facts. You will be surprised where it leads. Start with the movie Forks Over Knives.

Start with more propaganda? A video from a doctor who is known to simply cherry pick information and ignore studies that don't mesh with his theory, is not substantiation of your nonsense

Point of correction, Dr. Greger had nothing to do with Forks Over Knives.

You are right on party line. Whatever you think is right.

My original point was education. You seem to be reasonably educated to your point of view, and have a set opinion.

And yet you sound like you don't actually know what causes heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. I could be wrong about you, by the way.

This is the problem. There is a huge economic machine behind everyone believing that meat, dairy, and eggs have absolutely nothing to do with heart disease, so these industries fund studies/research that support their point of view, and cloud the causes.

And people easily buy into this because they don't like the message. They don't want to know that bacon and eggs will kill them when they are older. And so it goes.

The original link you posted from his site

But the studies that Greger cites, must be totally on point?

Again please substantiate your nonsense that meat, dairy and eggs will be killing people when they get older. Not a video from a biased site, or propaganda masquerading as a documentary

sorry man, I had to go get lunch.

It's funny you are so convinced of your point of view, sounds like me a couple years ago.

You are really attacking my point of view, strong words I think.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cvd_ped/summary.htm#chap2
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cvd_ped/summary.htm#chap5

Your education about nutrition is lacking. You have succumbed to the very problem you are decrying. You have a bias. I was you 2 years ago.