Our Food is Killing Us!

farfromglorified

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Well these labels will be the perfect disclaimer for that kind of mentality. They can say...'We told you. It's right there on the label!'

Yeah, that works really well. We've been labelling cigarettes for 40 years now and that certainly hasn't stopped anyone from pretending that they didn't know that cigarettes were bad for you either.

VictoryGin

surferdude wrote:

But please don't teach your kids the only way to apply any modicum of discipline in life is to basically outlaw things. I was hoping that puritanical attitude was long gone by the 21st century.

. . . [comment witheld]

Uncle Leo

surferdude wrote:

But it goes back to the parents letting their kids develop a taste for that crap so they then buy it when it's available. It doesn't bother me that my son's school has pop machines, I trust my son that he will not act like a retard and start buying it everyday. He's been raised to be health and diet aware.

Personally I'd like to see them get rid of the drugs in schools then worry about the pop machines. At least the schools are getting something out of the pop and theres not too much peer pressure to do pop nor too much stupid and risky behavior occurring after pop usage. Perspective, it's a neat thing.

Why get rid of drugs? Sounds like your kid, who you made sure would never drink pop to excess, would not use drugs, so you have nothing to worry about.

In all seriousness, junk food/pop and drugs are apples and oranges. Certain types of effort goes into ridding the school of drugs. The only thing that goes into not supplying junk food is to just not do it.

In other words, addressing this junk food issue is not done at the expense of addressing the drugs issue.

I know this paints me as a wussy liberal "caretaker" but I think it is the school's responsibility to make sure kids are not being that unhealthy. A kid can grab as much pop from a machine as they want. If a kid brings his own junk food, then the school cannot do much about it, but at the very least they should not be the enablers. Hey maybe they should have a smoking section too?

Pop is shit. It has no value. It has caffeine (which I think is worse than most acknowledge) in most cases and either 9 packets worth of sugar or some questionable chemicals. Supplying pop and candy at school (or, should I say creating easy access) is irresponsible.

But at home, it is our own jobs to police ourselves. If you don't know that McDonalds is bad for you, you're parents must have been bordering on neglectful. That is as common knowledge as looking both ways when you cross the street.

There is one reason that there is so much crap food to purchase. It's the market. There is not much market for healthy, though that market is growing. If people did not want polysorbinateglucaneididdalfjasdlkjfads, the companies would not produce it.

I used to be 50 pounds overweight because I ate like an idiot (at my ideal weight for 3.5 years now, so I am part of a pretty rare club). It was not Skippy Peanut Butter's fault (I ate it in excess) or Taco Bell's fault. It was mine. Now I eat much smarter. I still get some treats, but in much more moderation. I deserve credit for losing weight, but I deserve the blame for needing to lose it in the first place.

Abookamongstthemany

farfromglorified wrote:

Yeah, that works really well. We've been labelling cigarettes for 40 years now and that certainly hasn't stopped anyone from pretending that they didn't know that cigarettes were bad for you either.

Did they label about the things they put in the cigarettes to make them more addictive?

farfromglorified

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

The labeling on food now isn't the same as the labeling on cigarettes. It would be more effective to list the side effects on the product. I'm sure these kids don't want to be fat and stricken with diabetes. They just aren't thinking about the consequences as much when they grab for the Oreos. Next thing you know, you'll complain about 'wet floor' warnings.

I will complain about "wet floor" warnings when you force corporations to put them in the ocean.

I guess people should check ahead with the store to see when their mopping schedule will take place. Warning are there to help. There is nothing wrong, imo, with trying to protect the population from possibly harmful overconsumption. It's not against the law to drink Windex, most people know it's not a good idea to drink it but they still put a warning on the label for safety.

There is nothing wrong with trying to protect the population. It only becomes wrong when you start forcing people to do it for you.

If you want to protect people from eating bad foods, go out and educate them. Or start a healthy fast-food company. But don't just force McDonalds to start labelling each individual french fry and pretend that's going to solve the problem.

And I don't think anyone will read these warning labels and think they'll get sick after the first serving...no one thinks they'll get cancer from smoking one cigarette either. But at least you have been properly warned.

You're not going to "get sick after the first serving" unless you have some horrible allergy. A single cheeseburger isn't going to clog your arteries. One cupcake isn't going to send you to the morgue.

tybird

Cosmo wrote:

...
Even if it's out there... how many parents even read these labels? I think parents should already know this... they call it 'Junk Food' for a reason. I think people want to blame someone else for their failures... my kids are obese because of McDonalds, not because I use McDonalds 5 times a week for dinner because I'm too "busy" watching t.v. to cook for them.
And I know it is tough on parents... but, they should have taken that into consideration before bring the kid into the world. If you're too damn busy to cook for yourself... how in the hell are you gonna cook for your kid?
Parents rely on prepared, nukable pre-packaged foods to do some of the work... as well as the fast food joints. But, it is still their responsibility as to the portions allowed and the activities of their kids.

Great argument..........I think you nailed it on the head. Warning labels on products have become a running joke............Abook's Windex example could serve as evidence for such. The parents would not read warning labels (that would take time, and time is money), obese people would still abound, they would still file lawsuits, and we would keep getting charged more and more for consumer goods as a result. As a society, we can't hold everybody's hand and make them do the right thing.

surferdude

Cosmo wrote:

Parents rely on prepared, nukable pre-packaged foods to do some of the work... as well as the fast food joints. But, it is still their responsibility as to the portions allowed and the activities of their kids.

In a bad week we'll have two pre-packaged dinners. One is usually pizza and the other lasagna. And I'm a single parent, so healthy eating is do able. No food is quicker than an apple. Bananas are pretty close behind. Pre-cut fruits like cantaloupe and watermelon keep pretty good in the fridge. Cheaper than chips too.

What irks my chain in this debate is that it's the kids who are responsible, who care about their health, who understand the the concept of moderation are asked to pay the price. Food and food choices are not the problem, fat people are. But we seem afraid to address the problem. It's a pc cop-out and it has no place in our schools.

farfromglorified

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Did they label about the things they put in the cigarettes to make them more addictive?

No. The following message has been on a cigarette package for 40 years:

"Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health"

Is that not the issue here? Health problems? Is that not what these law suits have been about?

Abookamongstthemany

tybird wrote:

Great argument..........I think you nailed it on the head. Warning labels on products have become a running joke............Abook's Windex example could serve as evidence for such. The parents would not read warning labels (that would take time, and time is money), obese people would still abound, they would still file lawsuits, and we would keep getting charged more and more for consumer goods as a result. As a society, we can't hold everybody's hand and make them do the right thing.

Well maybe it's just me, but if I kept seeing how the food I was eating could make me sick everytime I opened the package it would definitely discourage me from eating it constantly.

Milhouse VanHouten

surferdude wrote:

Considering that schools are supposed to help make kids ready for the world and to think critically I wouldn't think that making soda pop available to be that bad a thing. Kids could be taught the danger of over consumption in about 15 minutes. Pop, like nearly all food, is not bad for you in moderation. I have much more of an issue with foods with high fat content. pop basically only has empty calories which you can provide the solution of more activity. It's not nearly that easy to counteract the affects of high in fat foods. But then again I don't really care that much I feed my kid healthy and he cares about his body.

The reason I bring drugs into the question is because the same group of people I see ranting about pop being sold in schools turn a blind eye to drugs and half of them are fighting for legalization of drugs. Drugs good, pop bad. Great message. Stop trying to get schools to focus on every small little issue in the world. The same group of parents fighting about pop in school, also spend school board time fighting for and against the book "I Have Two Mommys". Can we let schools get back to just trying to teach kids the three Rs and how to think critically. Once that's done you don't have to worry about all this little bullshit stuff.

It's pretty simple if you don't want your kid to drink pop don't let them grow up developping a taste for the stuff. Teach them the dangers of over-indulgence. But please don't teach your kids the only way to apply any modicum of discipline in life is to basically outlaw things. I was hoping that puritanical attitude was long gone by the 21st century.

Highly sweetened soft drinks have almost no nutritional value whatsoever, and the carbs in them turn to fat pretty quickly.

"Drugs good, pop bad"?? Right. Hyperbole's a wonderful thing. What parent "turns a blind eye to drugs" and fights for the legalization of drugs?

It's "Heather Has Two Mommies".

Abookamongstthemany

farfromglorified wrote:

No. The following message has been on a cigarette package for 40 years:

"Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health"

Is that not the issue here? Health problems? Is that not what these law suits have been about?

I thought the lawsuits were about the addiction. I could be wrong. Addiction and purposely promoting it are completely different problems than just being bad for you.

Uncle Leo

surferdude wrote:

In a bad week we'll have two pre-packaged dinners. One is usually pizza and the other lasagna. And I'm a single parent, so healthy eating is do able. No food is quicker than an apple. Bananas are pretty close behind. Pre-cut fruits like cantaloupe and watermelon keep pretty good in the fridge. Cheaper than chips too.

What irks my chain in this debate is that it's the kids who are responsible, who care about their health, who understand the the concept of moderation are asked to pay the price. Food and food choices are not the problem, fat people are. But we seem afraid to address the problem. It's a pc cop-out and it has no place in our schools.

I am not being PC because I know that fat people are the problem.

But the kids who care about their health have to pay the price? What price? The price of not being able to have pop at 10:00 in the morning? I don't see that as a price.

So pop in schools is a positive? I can't see that.

Negative (that's what I think)
Nuetral (a reasonable position)
Positive? I can't see how it's positive and I can't see how any kids "pay a price" for the elimination.

farfromglorified

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Well maybe it's just me, but if I kept seeing how the food I was eating could make me sick everytime I opened the package it would definitely discourage me from eating it constantly.

Then you stand alone. Food labelling is at an all time high. So is obesity.

farfromglorified

Uncle Leo wrote:

I am not being PC because I know that fat people are the problem.

But the kids who care about their health have to pay the price? What price? The price of not being able to have pop at 10:00 in the morning? I don't see that as a price.

So pop in schools is a positive? I can't see that.

Negative (that's what I think)
Nuetral (a reasonable position)
Positive? I can't see how it's positive and I can't see how any kids "pay a price" for the elimination.

Choice is always a positive when one chooses wisely. I'm not going to tell a kid that he can't occasionally buy a can of coke because the fat kid next to him buys 15 a day.

Abookamongstthemany

farfromglorified wrote:

Then you stand alone. Food labelling is at an all time high. So is obesity.

There are no labels on any junk food I've seen that warn of health risks.

Uncle Leo

farfromglorified wrote:

Then you stand alone. Food labelling is at an all time high. So is obesity.

That's true. No getting around it.

All of the people in my parents situation say that they did not know how bad smoking was when the started (what a BS cop out). Well now we know. AND we have labeling. And the proportion of people that smoke is approximately the same today as it was in the 1980s and the 1960s.

Abookamongstthemany

farfromglorified wrote:

Choice is always a positive when one chooses wisely. I'm not going to tell a kid that he can't occasionally buy a can of coke because the fat kid next to him buys 15 a day.

The coke is not necessary and it is infact harmful when overconsumed.

You don't have the choice to bring weapons to school because sometimes choice is not worth the risks.

surferdude

Milhouse VanHouten wrote:

Highly sweetened soft drinks have almost no nutritional value whatsoever, and the carbs in them turn to fat pretty quickly.

Easily counter-acted by physical activity.

Milhouse VanHouten wrote:

It's "Heather Has Two Mommies".

Damn, I must have been late for the PTA meeting when the book was discussed. I had a hard time getting my Hummer through the McDonalds drive-thru. Then the wait to get additional bacon and mayonaisse on ky kids four burgers was ridiculous. But it was okay for him, the X-box in the backseat kept him entertained, as it did all during the PTA meeting. I didn't want him to get his clothes sweaty playing with the other kids.

Uncle Leo

farfromglorified wrote:

Choice is always a positive when one chooses wisely. I'm not going to tell a kid that he can't occasionally buy a can of coke because the fat kid next to him buys 15 a day.

Then perhaps schools should have smoking sections. In fact why should there even be an age to buy tobacco. Why should I tell a kid he can't have an occaisional smoke at school just becasue someone else smokes three packs a day?

farfromglorified

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

I thought the lawsuits were about the addiction. I could be wrong. Addiction and purposely promoting it are completely different problems than just being bad for you.

The big tobacco lawsuit of 1998 was about the health reprecussions of smoking.

Yes addiction is a different issue and I agree with you that it is an important one.