You can't tax your way out of an obesity crisis, nor can you educate or exercise your way out of it, the problem is far too large.
Taxation didn't work with cigarettes, there's no evidence it would work for food, (or work more than a drop in the ocean)
Education is mostly moot, because 99% of people eating a big-mac or a mars bar know it's bad for them
Exercise - we've never in history had as many people attending gyms and doing exercise, yet obesity rates go up - so that's ineffective (you can't outrun a bad diet)
You have to legislate, legislation and law is the only way, people won't like it - they'll say "I don't want the nanny state telling me what to do" and they'll keep on saying that as they're being wheeled into the hospital to have treatment for obesity related disease.
Legislation should target two ares, quantity and quality.
If you have a town, that's already rammed with fast food and junk food outlets (like all towns) we should change planning legislation to restrict the amount of outlets within a certain distance. Because how many do we need? Is it really necessary to have, Mcdonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dominos, Papa Johns, and god knows how many indian/chinese/kebab places, within a certain area. I find it inconceivable, how we can be in the midst of an obesity crisis - and we're not taking steps to examine 'how much is enough'?
In terms of quality, we need to heavily restrict the food industry from engineering products that are designed to provide insane amounts of energy and flavour, which are mostly targeted at children, which simultaneously provide absolutely no useful nutrition at all (no fibre, no vitamins, no roughage) mostly just saturated fat, sugar and salt (especially in processed food). These products are essentially the root cause behind the excess intake of food, which drives the obesity and the disease. (because it's the growing rates of obesity in children which is the ticking time bomb)
There's no other way. the problem will get worse and worse (as it has been) but then again, I have little to no faith in the current, or any government's ability to enact sensible rules and regulations.
Taxation didn't work with cigarettes, there's no evidence it would work for food, (or work more than a drop in the ocean)
Education is mostly moot, because 99% of people eating a big-mac or a mars bar know it's bad for them
Exercise - we've never in history had as many people attending gyms and doing exercise, yet obesity rates go up - so that's ineffective (you can't outrun a bad diet)
You have to legislate, legislation and law is the only way, people won't like it - they'll say "I don't want the nanny state telling me what to do" and they'll keep on saying that as they're being wheeled into the hospital to have treatment for obesity related disease.
Legislation should target two ares, quantity and quality.
If you have a town, that's already rammed with fast food and junk food outlets (like all towns) we should change planning legislation to restrict the amount of outlets within a certain distance. Because how many do we need? Is it really necessary to have, Mcdonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dominos, Papa Johns, and god knows how many indian/chinese/kebab places, within a certain area. I find it inconceivable, how we can be in the midst of an obesity crisis - and we're not taking steps to examine 'how much is enough'?
In terms of quality, we need to heavily restrict the food industry from engineering products that are designed to provide insane amounts of energy and flavour, which are mostly targeted at children, which simultaneously provide absolutely no useful nutrition at all (no fibre, no vitamins, no roughage) mostly just saturated fat, sugar and salt (especially in processed food). These products are essentially the root cause behind the excess intake of food, which drives the obesity and the disease. (because it's the growing rates of obesity in children which is the ticking time bomb)
There's no other way. the problem will get worse and worse (as it has been) but then again, I have little to no faith in the current, or any government's ability to enact sensible rules and regulations.