Re:If You're Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and...
by pwinnski on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @02:15PM
(#20462438)
The naive part, then, is the idea that we can develop robust protections within our communities. At the risk of invoking "think of the children," our communities are ever-evolving, and the most vulnerable members are replenished regularly.
I'd love to believe that we could, as a community, make wise choices, but reality demonstrates otherwise.
I'm very much loathe to grant the government yet more ability to restrict content, but there is no doubt that television advertising bans on alcohol and tobacco are effective[0], so I definitely understand the desire to enact similar restrictions around unhealthy foods given their societal costs. I think the line is too fuzzy for me to be comfortable, but I'd rather go that direction than re-introducing tobacco advertising knowing that doing so will result in a reversal of the positive benefits.
I'd love to believe that we could, as a community, make wise choices, but reality demonstrates otherwise.
I'm very much loathe to grant the government yet more ability to restrict content, but there is no doubt that television advertising bans on alcohol and tobacco are effective[0], so I definitely understand the desire to enact similar restrictions around unhealthy foods given their societal costs. I think the line is too fuzzy for me to be comfortable, but I'd rather go that direction than re-introducing tobacco advertising knowing that doing so will result in a reversal of the positive benefits.
[0] https://www.nber.org/reporter/winter04/saffer.html