Food companies must be completely banned from advertising highly calorific or unhealthy food to combat a “public health emergency”, a House of Lords report has concluded.
Peers said that instead of relying on weight-loss jabs to solve the obesity crisis, the government should “fix the broken food system” through radical measures including taxes on junk foods.
People enjoying themselves leads to bad outcomes. We can now cure those bad outcomes but we’re not going to, instead we must stop people enjoying themselves.
Now apply that logic rigorously. We can now prevent people from getting HIV as a result of being promiscuous bum chums. But we must not allow anyone to use PrEP, instead we must insist they either stop shagging around or they die. Har Har.
No, these twats can fuck off.
‘Junk food’ to be defined by whom?
The people who are welcome to continue to use PrEP, Julia.
You could solve the junk food problem by putting all MacDonalds on top of sky scrapers and not providing lifts, just stairs. If you want a Big Mac, then you have to walk up 30 floors worth of stairs.
I’ll get my coat…..
People in physically demanding jobs need high calorie food, poor people in physically demanding jobs need cheap high calorie food.
So another assault on the poor and working classes by middle class prodnoses.
Fuck off is the mildest response.
highly calorific or unhealthy food is not a rigorous definition. Numbers are required to make a legal definition, and once you apply those numbers the law of unintended consequences will surely apply.
It’s a fine line to tread. A Mars bar has almost exactly double the calories as the same weight of Malt Whisky.
…instead of relying on weight-loss jabs to solve the obesity crisis, the government should [introduce] taxes on junk foods.
It’s the boring statist lack of imagination that’s so depressing – it doesn’t work for booze so let’s try it on food. The government must DO something.
Instead, lets gorge on “junk food” if we’re so inclined and so lacking in self-control and lets pay for our anti-fatness jabs if we are daft enough to want them. That ought to save 5000 state employees and their gold-plated pensions.
andyf @ 7.40, as our current rulers and masters are incapable of defining what a ‘Woman’ is or what ‘Working people’ are, what chance do you think there is that they will actually be able to accurately and precisely define highly calorific or unhealthy food?
“We can now prevent people from getting HIV as a result of being promiscuous bum chums. But we must not allow anyone to use PrEP, instead we must insist they either stop shagging around or they die.”
Thanks, Tim, but I find the TTK/Lord Alli combo scary just as they are. A frustrated, angry combo might be more than I could stand. Mind you, the “dying” is very appealing…
If we ban advertising, nobody will know what chips are.
The House of Lords is very smart.
Freedom and personal responsibility. Let’s try that.
20% VAT on food. Solves obesity and fills Rachel Reeves black hole.
Too obvious to pass up?
The potato council used to be a quango before it was sun off as an industry lobbying group. Exists to promote the eating of potatoes. I remember once explaining the potato council to a yank, saying that we used to have a potato tax in the UK.
PrEP? You could ban the Pill under the same crappy logic. And abortions.
“banned from advertising highly calorific … food”
Why stop at a ban? How about some diet propaganda: “Say no to olives!” – that sort of thing.
After all the last round of government diet propaganda urged you to eat margarine instead of butter and to avoid egg yolks. Nonsense on stilts.
I see there was some online consultation about the future of the NHS. Now deleted, but some wag suggested that the should be a maximum BMI allowed for nurses. I’m sure Spud would give the nurses a free pass while the rest of us will be forming a queue to be weighed, prodded and poked.
Sneezy,
One of the best ones was a proposal to put a Wetherspoons in every hospital to raise moral. Great idea, wind up the public health puritans, remoaners and the sneering classes in one go, what’s not to like?
Back when I used to do distance running and triathlons, carb loading was a necessary part of training for and taking part in events. I had to take some care because I’m a T2 diabetic, but complex carbs before and simple carbs during events was a necessary part of it all. Somehow I managed to stay very fit and very thin.
Stupid one size fits all thinking!
“People enjoying themselves leads to bad outcomes”
But in 6 years time (according to Klaus Schwab and his WEF buddies), we’ll own nothing and be happy…
“The government must DO something”
Because if they didn’t, and everything carried on as normal*, the game would be up!
*Didn’t Belgium manage 500+ days without a functioning government?
So, a load of unelected, morbidly obese, old farts say that we must not become morbidly obese ourselves, and recommend legislation to make it so. Perhaps they should set the example by, say, closing down the taxpayer subsidised bars and restaurants in the HoL? Having their transport dropping them off short, so they have to walk the last half mile to receive their allowances might also help. Just a thought.
So they want to ban Gatorade (and Lucozade Sport) despite Gatorade’s recommendations from eminent scients as well as the University of Florida. It’ll only kill a few dozen runners in the London Marathon and a few thousand in other races *each year.*
In a 50k race on a hot day I should like a swig of one or the other every couple of laps after the first hour or so. These old codgers do NOT know what they are talking about.
“*Didn’t Belgium manage 500+ days without a functioning government?”
One can argue Belgium never had a “functioning government”…
But yeah, it simply means the old government stays in place while a new coalition is formed, under limitations on what it actually can do.
Which, unsurprisingly, makes for the periods where belgian government actually sort of works, because the Busybodies are officially and lawfully told to Shut Their Yaps and simply do their actual job and nothing more.
Dave Ward,
Didn’t Belgium manage 500+ days without a functioning government?
Hell, over here we’ve managed four years without a functioning government!