Should the government get involved in reducing Britain’s Waistline?

original image modified by ed

Fizzy drinks should be heavily taxed and junk food adverts banished until after the watershed, doctors have said, in a call for action over obesity.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents nearly every doctor in the UK, said ballooning waistlines already constituted a "huge crisis".

Its report said current measures were failing and called for unhealthy foods to be treated more like cigarettes. - bbc

This is similar to drug sellers giving discounts to new users, and then charging them high prices upon addiction. In this context, we have the pretense of concern for our well-being being used to justify said rises.

Regulate these industries so that we can have a choice between good stuff as opposed to having a choice between having or not having what we have been made to be accustomed to.

Secondly,

There are quite a few whom believe that the government should just stay out of it and not ‘nanny’ the people in this, amongst other respects.

To say that the government should not get involved is basically an abdication of our position as the employers of the government.

What we should be doing is overseeing the government's regulation of these industries and not treating the government as a foreign body. If they behave in such a manner, it is only with our silent or apathetic acquiescence.

If an idea that comes from the government is good, we should take over its direction, not discard it because we didn't think of it first. That said, its not like this idea didn't come from the people first through watch-bodies and pressure groups.

As for respecting the choice of people when it comes to food, etc, let’s not forget that these ‘choices’ are largely led by the corporation in terms of the buffet of choices that they have been putting before us for quite a while now.  What many think, feel, desire, or view as ‘their choice’ is not.  This opportunity to exert pressure on corporations in the content of their produce and adverts is a positive step toward ensuring that what assails our senses is a product of thoughtful critique on our part. 

It’s about time Britain took over the reigns of the ‘Nanny Corporation’ via the government, and in doing so, reclaim our authority over the latter.



ed