Yeah sure, lets allow companies to make highly attractive poison, advertise it using whatever tricks they can think up short of pornography, allow supermarkets to place this shit wherever they think people are most vulnerable and at eye level, allow sales and promotions promoting consumption.
Who could forsee that people would overindulge? What could be the solution? SIN TAXES
farque awffff. Can you imagine if we let companies poor waste into a river and taxed you if you swam in it? Fucking deranged proposal. This stupid political system that can’t see a government as anything except a way of distributing financial penalties has absolutely cooked us.
zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I get your point, but we can regulate against dumping waste into a river without anyone except the polluters cracking the shits about it.
What would the equivalent look like for junk food? Regulation where they set a maximum sugar level for every category of product? That could maybe work, but it’d be a big and contested undertaking, and I’m guessing some portion of the voting population would crack the shits about not being able to get exactly what they used to get, and how the limits in place are arbitrary and unfair in some way.
The UK tax on sugar content in soft drinks did result in manufacturers reformulating drinks to have less sugar (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11156274/), so that’s an example where a tax reduced the ‘dumping waste into the river’.
Or are you just suggesting banning advertising of junk food? I agree that seems totally viable and should be pursued.
Personally, I think the first priority should be fixing the Health Star Rating system. It was ruined by the liberals making it a relative rating within each category of product, not an absolute rating that actually helps people make healthier choices overall (e.g. it might encourage people to buy a healthier variety of biscuits, but it doesn’t encourage them to not buy biscuits at all). They should also make it mandatory.
I’m surprised this article doesn’t mention the Health Star Rating, actually. The first step for consumers making good choices is to give consumers good information. I get the article is trying to highlight economic and geographic factors, but still.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The health star rating is under reform! Good news!
And I think regulating the content of food based on nutritional guidelines is quite difficult, a bit joyless, and likely to backfire and entrench established food products and production while hampering stuff like plant based alternatives which may represent healther and more ethical ways to produce hyper palatable treats.
I think it’s easier to place restrictions (at least now) and what can represent itself as good and normal parts of a human diet as opposed to what is essentially a starch or fat based lolly.