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Comment by neverartful | Hacker News Reader

Like many of the posters here, I realize that much of the food and drink sold is unhealthy. On the other hand, I don't think that nanny state regulations are the answer. Plenty of unhealthy things abound (when overused): chips, candy, pizza, fast food, cookies, ice cream, video games, television, etc. Maybe some of the same marketing tactics used to sell the unhealthy things can also be used to counter them with healthier alternatives.

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That's a pleasant thought, but it seems unlikely. Food advertising gets circa 1000x as much money as healthy eating [1].

I think the simple step here would just be to ban advertising of unhealthy food the same way we've banned advertising of tobacco products. Citizens would still be free to produce and consume junk food, but corporations would no longer be allowed to indulge in industrial-scale manipulation of consumers' habits.

That won't happen either, of course, because there's an enormous amount of lobbying money from those industries (and from the advertising/PR/marketing industries). But I can dream.

[1] http://consumersunion.org/news/food-industry-advertising-ove...

Under a socialized healthcare regime, every sick person is a problem for the whole society in that we have to pay for it. So, being careless with your health is a crime against the people. If you are in the USA, consider that you have been funding healthcare for some of the worst offenders for decades by paying taxes which fund hospitals. Now with the healthcare reforms in mind, which have itemized your contribution to social healthcare separately from your taxes, take a walk around Walmart and consider all the preventable health issues you see in the crowd. Do you really want to pay for that? I feel like you and I should have the freedom not to, and our collective freedom not to is more important than any individual's freedom to eat and drink his way to costly, lifelong illness.

Which is precisely why some of us are opposed to socialised healthcare. Once you have it, every little decision you make becomes everyone else's business.

You make "socialised healthcare" sounds like we have a NHS food police tracking us and sending us off to a health re-education camp if we don't eat 5 bits of fruit and veg a day.

And even if that were true, they're obviously not doing a very good job of restricting bad food intake given the UK's own obesity problems.

If the NHS were following everyone around, they'd have to be stuffing people full of low quality food to get the present outcome.

I completely agree. This is why I've been skeptical of socialist healthcare - your business becomes everybody's business. We MUST have a private option; a way to opt-out of public benefits for healthcare, if we are to maintain the option of freedom.

That's why the "public option" was such a decent choice. Before it was killed to sell-out to insurance companies.

It's easy to advocate for collectivism when you think you are in the majority. I am a proponent of universal healthcare, but your comment has me reconsidering. Throwing individuals or subgroups under the bus so disdainfully is just as damaging to our social fabric as eating unhealthily, if not moreso.

We need to unify and enlighten ourselves, not look for more excuses to feel morally superior. So whatever solution we can find to obesity, it has to be one that uplifts, not one that alienates.

I don't think "nanny state rules" would be throwing anyone under the bus. I certainly believe that the collective poor health of the country in general is a good argument against socialized healthcare. But I want it to work. But I don't think that everyone is ready for the responsibility, so we should guide them with a heavy hand. After all, universal healthcare means that everyone must be included.

Just because I happen to be healthier than some of the people around me doesn't mean I am better than them in any way. I meant to highlight that we in the USA don't have to look very far to see why our insurance premiums went up so much.

> I certainly believe that the collective poor health of the country in general is a good argument against socialized healthcare

I think that rather it is a good argument for. If american's people health is so low it's because most people avoid doctors and hospital at all cost.

What a terrifying mentality.

Perhaps there can be screenings at some frequency to determine one's health. If a person consistently shows a lack of inclination to take care of themselves and follow advice, that behavior is logged and they automatically get de-prioritized when waiting lists are involved. I would assume that generally healthy people are just more of a positive investment, but if someone makes the motions of good health but encounters some life-changing event then they can be said to have shown an inclination to take care of themselves.

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