Made mice less active! Not people. It was a link to an article about a mouse study
Then the wealthy spend their money convincing the public that the government shouldn't have to guarantee reasonably priced medical care because it would tax the wealthy out of the money they gained from this system. This is a pattern that repeats across a lot of issues that affect the poor. Look at overdrafts on bank accounts, mandatory prison sentences, for profit prisons, drug laws...
If history has taught us anything, it's that the wealthy/powerful will continue this cycle until they're getting decapitated on the streets in a few decades, rather than make minimal changes now to head off the problem, no pun intended.
Additional taxes may do, it helped for smoking. Slap the same tax on sugar, (processed) animal products, oils. And make a VAT exempt on whole plant foods. That combined with updated nutritional education will save millions.
That said, I agree with you about choice. Creating a Nanny State only further disables the masses, and perpetuates the Nanny State. If you're always doing my homework, how am I going to learn to add?
Moi? Unless, there's a personal responsibility / accountability most people won't change. Not to get off topic, I do believe we (i.e., the USA) should have an accessible healthcare system. That's simply modern common decency. However, making misguided decisions (i.e., preventable diseases) affordable and acceptable is dangerous and expensive.
I understand its hard to see folks making choices that diverge from my personal sense of what's optimal. But it is a cost of living in a free society.
We're discussing ideas on how to get a hold on the obesity crisis. I suggested some extra taxes. Yes some gov't regulation.
You suggested me to use the free market, but food is already on the free market. So I fail to understand what you are actually suggesting.
At the same time you say "get rid of the crap", while not defining how to do so (without gov't regulation accordin to your own preferences) and without defining what in your eyes crap then means...
Please make a real argument.
And why should any solution be "consistent with American values"; obesity in the US is VERY CONSISTENT with American values. Maybe to turn the tide on it we have to look in a diff direction.
I'm sensitive to this topic. Live in a University town. Periodically some idealistic students petition the City Council for some totalitarian ban as part of a social engineering agenda. The latest was, Permit only Organic Coffee to be sold in the city limits.
This clueless banning/taxing/penalizing folks for living as they please is inconsistent with American values. More typical of nanny states and other less savory government styles.
Bollocks. Read your law books. Weed is only recently legal in some states. Ciggies are taxed heavily, so is petrol. Try walking butt naked in the streets.
My point: your values are arbitrary. And calling them American(TM) does not give them any credibility in my eyes. In fact what you are doing is similar to what you despise in others: setting some standard and calling it "universal" (ok US-niversal)
> To make it clear: what people eat and how they exercise is a very personal matter.
Except:
When there is a public healthcare system that takes care of you fuck up.
When advertising is everywhere shoving "eat unhealthy crap" messages into our collective sub-conscience.
When some sentient being needs to suffer/die/have-children-taken-away-at-birth/is-forcefully-impregnated-(also-called-rape)...
What I'm saying is that I see cases around me of diet not being a strictly personal choice. I think if you try hard you can see it too. It's not so black-white as you make yourself believe.
So you agree it is there? Are you against them taxes now then?
Don't act like the US is some an-cap utopia or something, it full of tariffs, permits, taxes, privileges, etc., pretty much like any western country. Slapping a heavy tax on unhealthy foods is not making a huge diff in that picture.
So the premise of the study seems to indicate that the problem is largely one of education - I guess that's why they dropped this onto the school system. Instead of playing with a few guinea-pigs on a small scale maybe it's time think to think about the big picture:
1. Get all the crap out of the food supply.
2. Put an end, permanently with threat of severe sanctions, to all the fear-mogering in the media that frightens parents into keeping their kids indoors.
3. Deal with small-scale, crime, bullying, availability of drugs, etc. etc. that keep kids inside in front of the games console or TV instead of getting outside.
4. Create spaces were kids can go outside.
5. Get away from schools being places where kids sit on their asses for 6+ hours a day. For example in today' physics lesson on electro-magnetism we are actually going to biuld a 50m maglev track. OK so this is a bit unrealistic but it would be a hell of a lot more fun and everybody would be a lot more active.
... etc. etc., rant, rant.
In other words, the solution to a complex problem which is poorly understood is probably a whole range of solutions to create an environment where obesity simply is not possible. But that would take a huge amount of money, a huge amount of political will, a lot of creative thinking and a general re-wiring of a large number of attitudes and expectations.