Since everything else we've tried to get overweight people to stop eating so much has failed it might be worth looking at different approaches.
Because unhealthy food is delicious, cheap AND addictive.
>Since everything else we've tried to get overweight people to stop eating so much has failed it might be worth looking at different approaches.
Well, a ban on refined starches and corn sugar work quite well. People were much healthier (from an obesity perspective) when such products were not available.
Do Scotland, New Zealand, Hungary use "corn sugar"? We don't use it much in England and we (along with those other countries) also have problems with obesity.
I'll happily accept that calories from sugar are a problem.
How much of a problem, though, compared to say, the US? I've travelled quite a bit in Europe, Asia, etc, and I've seen nothing compared to the US level of obesity. Heck, the kind of people you'll see in a Walmart (and not isolated -- tons of them, and all over the states)...
I guess it's also other stuff: deep fried anything, Sneaker and Mars bars, chips (crisps), BS "sports" drinks, sodas, etc etc.
That's a really bad choice, though, that a lot of people make. Perhaps it will be good if that choice was eliminated, or made more difficult with a large tax. At least then people would think twice before ordering a $10 corn-syrup soda vs a $2 no-sugar one.
>Wouldn't this have a big impact on the food industry, too?
Well, the smoking bans also hurt the tobacco industry too. If an industry relies in causing people harm by using cheap substitutes (e.g corn sugar for sugar etc), or selling addictive shit, let them be impacted.
That's just it, I don't like the idea of bullying people into healthy eating. I don't want to end up in a future where it's illegal to consume more than 2000 calories in a day. Fortunately people don't seem to like this idea given the reception of the large soda ban in NYC.
Leaving people to freely chose their food is obviously not working. We could pay people to eat more healthily - would you support that? So why is it different to add costs to unhealthy food?
But in this case I don't really consider it bullying but rather punishment to greedy industries using crap materials in their food products.