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Comment by navailable | Hacker News Reader

Covid shows that governments who fail to encourage nutritious diets will end up with higher healthcare costs.

So it's not controversial to suggest a poor diet leads to things like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, nor is it controversial to suggest that the novel coronavirus is much more deadly for people with preexisting conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

For some reason though, if I put those two things together and suggest people eat healthier during this pandemic, it's this incredibly controversial thing to say, at least where I live in the US.

People just hate being told what to eat - it's as simple as that. I've given up trying to explain that dietary preferences are surprisingly elastic, and highly dependant on what you've recently eaten. It's something that's obvious to anyone who's dabbled with any sort of dietary modification (e.g. cutting down on carbs, or trying out vegetarianism for a bit, or just cutting out soda). Your tastes change surprisingly fast. Something that you previously loved, like a burger, or a big hunk of steak, can transform from a regular craving to something that sounds kind of gross in a matter of a couple months.

But just trying to explain this phenomenon to people is often met with extreme defensiveness. You'll hear: I could NEVER give up pasta/meat/whatever. But they absolutely could, and it wouldn't be nearly as hard as they're imagining.

I'll always encourage anyone curious about tweaking their diet to just go for it, but I've given up entirely on trying to nudge people toward a healthier lifestyle if it's not something they're already working toward.

> People just hate being told what to eat - it's as simple as that.

In Netherlands in loads of restaurant the vegetarian option will taste terrible. In recent years that's slowly changing. I often wondered why someone chose the vegetarian option, it looked and tasted terrible. It wasn't just the initial impression, everything vegetarian was bad to terrible. Plus stupidity on my part, instead of buying something nice that's vegetarian I'd try terrible meat-replacements.

To me someone eating vegetarian was someone giving up enjoying food.

IMO it's nicer to focus on the positives rather than on what someone cannot or should not do. E.g. various colleagues are now vegan. Some just because the vegan diet is better for them (more energy, sleeping, etc). That's stuff they experienced, I'm not vegan/vegetarian.

Another thing I realized is that sometimes the meat part in a dish is actually terrible. A lot of the chicken in Netherlands is sold with a huge amount of added water. It actually does not taste any good, sometimes it is not even noticeable that it is in a dish. A vegan friend was visiting, I already was doubting why I was adding chicken to a dish. Replacing the chicken resulted in a nicer dish (cauliflower with mango chutney plus loads of other spices). Since that experience that dish will at least be vegetarian.

Further, why not let people experience it? Instead of saying that they'll change, maybe say it might happen. IMO it's not that important someone completely changes their diet or never eats something. If they go from regularly eating meat to sometimes eating meat that's already a huge change.

Just chiming in to echo this sentiment. My own experiences from losing a bunch of weight and becoming a vegetarian agree.

Spend a few weeks not eating anything with refined sugar and suddenly things you used to like are cloyingly sweet. Eat a diet free from all fried foods and you'll find french fries are now too greasy. Etc.

the line between trying to encourage someone to be healthier via weight loss, diet, exercise, etc. and making someone feel bad about their appearance isn't always clear, especially from two different people. being healthy isn't as simple for someone as it is on paper, just saying "calories in < calories out" ignores all the other factors that promote health that people who are already healthy already have. take having built habits already, learning what exactly to do, finding time in a busy schedule, etc. the bottom line is being healthy is hard, especially when you don't have a background in it

stemming from this, I think the most important thing is that people "get fit" for the right reasons. that they want to have better health, be able to do more activites, etc. vs some of the more usually toxic reasons like trying to meet conventional beauty standards, hating their own appearance. far too often I have seen people who "rush" trying to get fit, or do it for the wrong reasons, and just set themselves up for failure in the long run - or potentially much worse, like depression and the like.

so I think things like having a good measure of "self love" and self worth no matter what you look like, patience, consistency, etc. are all keys to succeeding over just "eating less" or whatever

I think in the US people see it as an assault on freedom. Concern that what starts as a suggestion will turn into a tax, and then the tax into a ban. Some value freedom over health.

That may seem illogical since you can't have freedom if you're dead, but we ask people to make a similar trade-off (risk life/health for freedom) when joining the military, and many do.

i mean it does sound kind of jerk-ish because it's not like telling someone who is obese right now to eat better is going to drastically reduce his pandemic risks in a week.

I'm generally sceptical of tying this kind of advice to crises anyway. It's a social and long-term issue. We ought to eat better not just so that we are better prepared for a pandemic but because it's the right thing to do in general.

It’s not just encourage. What we’re finding is that the government has to be authoritarian. China welded people into their homes to keep them from spreading COVID. They literally caged them like animals and threw them into trucks. Now Mexico is denying children potato chips.

Think about universal healthcare and alcohol. How much money is spent on alcohol related issues? The best answer is to ban its sale. Same for tobacco. Enough people have shown then are unable or unwilling to do the right thing. As a result junk food, booze and smokes need to go the way of freedom of speech. We need to ban them.

That doesn't really go any way towards explaining why Canada, Europe or the Oceania[1] democracies have done so well in the crisis - nor does it explain how Brazil has done so poorly.

I think there is more counter evidence then supporting evidence for authoritarian governments being necessary for dealing with pandemics.

1. Please note - comparatively well, Canada, Europe & Oceania aren't doing perfect they're just doing significantly better than the states.

> Europe [has] done so well in the crisis

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Belgium all have had more COVID-19 deaths per capita than the US. And France has a rate nearly equal to the US.

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, and Netherlands all have worse case fatality rates than the US. And so does Canada. (But, this may be because the US has done more testing.)

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/8993658...

Why on earth would 'per capita' be a relevant metric? Is a death less impactful or important when it's in a more populated country?

Also keep in mind Europe was struck before the US - the worst of the first wave is behind them while the US is still riding it down

Also, authoritarian governments often lie to protect their "authority". Their "authority" is based upon this illusion of infallibility, which goes against democratic principles like openness.

The United States has done poorly because we are a country whose population hates each other. It’s a country comprised entirely of people whose ancestors said, “You know what? I hate you so much that I’d rather cross an ocean, face bears, wolves, and the elements than to spend another day with you.” That’s why we won’t wear masks.

I mean - Canada is in the same boat right? Canada might even be worse off since the country was originally french and then that entire population (along with first nations & Metis which are a more significant portion of the population up here) was second-classed when the English won a war that one time. Quebec secessionist is far more serious than any state in the US[1] and western Canada tends to begrudge the arbitrary french bilingualism while wondering why Mandarin or Punjabi isn't the other official language.

All that said - Canada is still a country that identifies as a country. If anything is causing a real divide in America it's the entirely manufactured hatred of modern divisive politics. As someone who grew up in Boston I went to school with a wide array of skin tones and original nationalities - there weren't Irish and Italian gangs beating up the black kids - there were suburban entitled white-kid gangs beating up the black kids... Any sort of origin based racism left in America is from more recent immigrants - it's totally bullshit and needs to stop - but I've never met anyone in America that said "Hey - you look Prussian - I don't like Prussians since they moved in on my Pomeranian ancestors. I don't take kindly to you folk."

I am uncertain where you've observed it, but I certainly never saw it in either New England nor the south west.

1. That isn't to say they're leaving tomorrow, there is just actually a serious portion of the population unlike all of the US states.

I have occasionally observed anti-Polish racism in the US. Perpetrated by generically “white” Americans against anyone with a Polish last name or Polish accent.

There's a difference between allowing adults and children to consume things. Children have limited agency and we consider it a social duty to protect them from some of life's extremes until they're better capable of understanding the consequences of their actions.

You don't have to ban things not be authoritarian. Smart governments just price in externalities, which is why you slap tobacco and alcohol with extra taxes to offset the increased costs of health care and reduced adult lifetimes.

Or... how about we provide treatment for people who are abusing alcohol, drugs, etc? There are billions of people who can responsibly use alcohol. Banning it doesn't make any sense for those who aren't addicts.

Doesn’t matter. Look at those who try to ban guns and free speech. Millions use both responsibility every day. Besides science has shown little benefit to alcohol and tobacco and no benefit to junk food.

What we need is to ban cooking at home. Government soup kitchens. All consumption needs to be documented and controlled.

> What we need is to ban cooking at home.

This needs citation, seriously. Cooking at home, even cooking "insanely unhealthy" butter injected baked chicken at home, still seems to be a lot healthier for you than a hungry man dinner, so I think that the real issue is related to the preservatives and the salt & sugar required to mask those preservatives - that are used to unnaturally extend the self-life of pre-made and frozen food.

All of which would be banned by the government kitchens. I’ve found that people don’t really need or want choices. They want the government to take care of them from cradle to grave. No matter how crappy government, people want to give it more power. At this point we should.

What?

You are being downvoted (nice username btw haha) but you are onto something. My belief is that for certain things, the government MUST be authoritarian: Public Health, education and safety (police, firefighters, etc). That's why I think a more centralized government like the one in Mexico might find it easier to implement sensible policies and apply them "in an authoritative way" to the whole country without state resistance.

Now, if only the government was not as corrupt as it is in Mexico...

There are plenty of countries that were not China cruel and successfully contained COVID in their country.

How long until it's you the one that needs to be banned?

I sincerely hope there is someone there to stand for you.

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