[olau]

Initiatives like this has always appeared to me as a cheap way for societies to improve the health of their population.

Perhaps better done in the form of a tax - in the sense that junk food causes an externality in the form of health problems, that does seem warranted. The underlying problem is that the incentives are not aligned.

[thisisnico]

We tax alcohol and cigarettes because they are bad for you, but are totally fine with binge eating as much junk food as you like. Obesity is a massive epidemic. Heart attack and stroke are the number one killers, with obesity the highest cause. I'm all for putting warning labels on food showing the potential problems of overconsumption.

[jachell]

I bet if you ask any random person in the US if McDonald's is bad for you, they will say yes.

I don't think the obesity epidemic is from lack of information.

[riffraff]

I remember some statistics that showed smokers thought cigarettes were more carcinogenic than non-smokers, and actually more than they actually are.

So yeah, information is certainly necessary but not enough.

[dylan604]

Information does nothing to counter addiction. Sugar is just as addictive as nicotine, but doesn't have the negativity associated with it.

[asveikau]

I think McDonald's is probably ok for you in small portion sizes, no soda, and with reasonable exercise throughout the day.

I think the trouble is that people get big portions, a big soda, and they live their entire lives in a car or seated.

We had McDonald's in the 80s and if you look at random footage of any 1980s street scene you will see fewer obese people than the same places today.

Relatedly, I have a suspicion our basic food ingredients since that time have higher sugar now.

[jules]

There's a huge variation in how bad McDonald's food is wrt obesity, if you look at calories versus satiety. Probably the worst are sugary soft drinks and milkshakes. Potato fries are quite bad. Hamburgers are okayish. Salads are okay.

[munk-a]

I bet if you ask any random heroine addict if heroine is bad for them they will say yes - they'll just have more compelling reasons to keep using.

Addiction is a disease and junk food is super addicting.

[jachell]

You're moving goalposts.

[munk-a]

I disagree - I was trying to provide a counter example to your statement on the lack of a contribution of ignorance to addiction. I think most addicts are well aware of the negative effects of their addiction at a conscious level and at the very least, if asked if their addiction was harmful, would reply "Well yea a bit" or "Well yea it could be" - people with drinking problems don't live in a happy go lucky land where they think everything is a-okay, they are coping and trying to survive. Most are quite aware that their habit is destructive but either don't see another way to move forward or endow a lack of personal strength with all the guilt of their habit - "If I could stop I would, but I'm too weak."

So I think mentioning that people are generally aware of the bad side effects of junk food isn't helpful - some people indulge due to perceived financial pressures (especially time pressures) others because of the short term pleasure- "Everything is going to hell - at least I can enjoy this milkshake and forget about things for a while." Additionally you have just plain old cravings and other factors.

I agree that the obesity epidemic isn't caused by a lack of information - so I think your point is important, but I think it's also important to realize that addictive substances almost never have that lack of information. Booze and cigarettes both tend to come with really heavy warnings about side effects but those warnings don't really have a noticeable effect.

Forcing manufacturers to put those warnings on products is essentially a big cop out by the government to avoid taking any real action.

[s5300]

This is incorrect.

Honestly - I can't blame anybody who could be found lurking, let alone posting on hackers news to think there's no way that this isn't common sense. However, it's not. It's really, unfortunately, very far from it in the U.S.

I now cannot easily find it (at least in a brief search on Google) because of recent bullshit regarding the keywords, but a few years back, there was a medical case that briefly made news. Woman in her thirties, not mentally deficient (by any diagnosis anyways), job holding, etc - was hospitalized at near death from a variety of issues that had gradually become quite severe.

Cause of the issues? She'd, by her, family, and friends accounts, not drank plain water in years, pushing near a decade. The majority of her fluid intake, that entire time, had been Coors Light (sparingly sodas, other sugary/alcoholic drinks that weren't plain water). Her justification as to why she had no idea this could cause any bodily harm is because it was "light"

It's bad. Truthfully, I'm happy for you that you get to live a life where you don't know/haven't been exposed to how bad. But, it's bad and I don't see it getting better any time soon.

[jachell]

I don't appreciate the condescending tone.

"2013 nationally representative phone survey of about 2000 subjects showed that one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health, whereas two-thirds considered FF not good. Even over two-thirds of weekly FF consumers (47% of the total population) thought FF not good."

Note: FF = fast food

https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/9/5/590/5062131

There's also this scene from Fat Head: https://youtu.be/evcNPfZlrZs?t=1258

[liability]

> one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health

I wonder what portion of Americans have a troll mentality and will say stupid shit to pollers just for fun. Probably not far off one in five...

[Dylan16807]

A variety of issues? So not something simple like alcohol killing her liver? Then I'm skeptical. There's nothing special about plain water.

[s5300]

Huh?

I think you've missed the point.

There's a person out there who thinks it's a perfectly healthy way of life to consume beer as their only fluid intake. Every day. For years. I guess you really need the context of the article - the main concern of it was really highlighting the fact that they weren't aware only drinking beer could been even remotely harmful to somebody, specifically because it had "light" in the name. Like, even if it had nothing to do with her being hospitalized. Not an argument as to whether or not doing so/having the choice to is wrong - simply that the fact a beverage, alcoholic nonetheless, could not be even slightly bad for the human body, because it had "light" in the name...

I know that may seem like satire to us - but this person was completely serious. Or is there something about your comment that I'm missing?

[Dylan16807]

I'm suggesting that the story is missing very important pieces or possibly not true at all.

(And if it didn't actually harm her, was she even wrong to think a light beer was safe to drink? And by that I mean safe in the amount she drank, not some strawman about it being impossible to harm a human ever in any quantity. Note that not even water passes that strawman test.)

[auganov]

Any amount of cigarettes or alcohol [0] will harm you.

"Junk food" is a pseudo-scientific designation selectively targeting certain kinds of calorie dense foods. These foods may epidemiologically contribute to obesity, but on an individual level they're far from universally bad.

I think warning about food over-consumption would be great. But selectively targeting some foods only misinforms the public.

[0] And alcohol is still getting far less attention than cigarettes. Most places still don't have warning labels about the risk of cancer or even broad public awareness, despite 3.5% of cancer deaths being alcohol attributable.

[Dirlewanger]

Warning labels aren't going to do anything aside from trigger busybody soccer moms when they go to buy their kid's cereal because they won't stop screaming for it. Taxing it is better, but still ultimately is not going to solve the root problem, which I think is the government's over-subsidization of corn and the overabundance of HFCS.

Ban HFCS/similar garbage sweeteners in all food products, and incentivize farmers to grow something other than corn. Give them grants to build all-year-round hydroponic farms to grow vegetables or something. And then from there, I think we can start to address other ailments like school lunches and the like.

[mschuster91]

> And then from there, I think we can start to address other ailments like school lunches and the like.

No need to wait for anyone for fixing school lunches as this is squarely a financial issue, the key thing there is that cities need some form of politically untouchable budget for education - because as soon as it gets politically touchable, it's the first thing to be axed when a budget crisis looms.

[Antipode]

Subsidies are the reason HFCS is used in everything in the US, but sucrose is also cheap and isn't healthier than HFCS. I'm not convinced that the price difference between the two would significantly affect manufacturers' decisions of whether or not to include a sweetener.

[Reedx]

Yeah, I think we'll eventually get to the point where junk food prices in the externalities and it'll go back to being a relatively rare treat (i.e. sustainable). Currently sugar is artificially cheap. The cost is just being kicked down the road, coming back in the form of health problems and hospital bills.

That sugary drinks are similarly priced or even cheaper than a bottle of water is completely backwards. Soda, juice, etc should be the expensive option (which they are in the long-term!) and water the default, smart choice both in terms of health and immediate cost at the counter.

[teknopaul]

Seems like a good idea on paper but somehow the poorest of the poor smoke.

[edgarvaldes]

In Mexico we have a tax on sugary drinks.

[epmaybe]

I feel like we were always taught that taxes were significantly better at curbing usage compared to bans or limits - the classic example being the cigarette tax

[teknopaul]

Cigarette tax is a scam to raise money from selling drugs. Cigs have inelastic demand. In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax. That caused a scandal so they changed tack to homogonize tax across the eu which, incidentally of course, would reduce tax in Germany.

Tax is charged on cigs because it works and no other reason, its regressive tax too.

I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers. The only place it works is where there are nicotine alternatives.

[mschuster91]

> I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers.

I'd prefer if the fight against smoking was not dealt with in a classist way (the ones suffering the most from this tax are poor people, who don't have either the money or the mental energy to fight off an addiction)!

The best way to fight smoking is to get rid of advertising... where Germany (and Bulgaria) are the only EU countries left where it is still legal to advertise for tobacco products on billboards.

[jules]

* Cigs have inelastic demand.

* In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax.

Can't both be true...

[inerte]

To be fair, cigarettes have additional restrictions like where and to whom it can be sold, and also advertisement. Or even being explicitly called out on media ratings: PG-13, contains smoking!

I don't know if anyone has quantified the effects on sales of each measure, but they certainly add up with the additional taxes.

[pm90]

The difference here is that the ban is applicable to minors. We already ban minors from a slew of products, this is only extending that list.

[dfxm12]

I think if the goal is that you want kids to eat less of this stuff, then just don't let kids buy it.

If the goal is to raise money, then maybe some sort of tax is the better bet, but you have to keep in mind who benefits from the raised money vs how much of their money you're taking. This would be a regressive tax & poorer people tend to eat more junk food and have more health problems, too. I mean, don't discount the externality that such a tax would disproportionately punish poor people for buying certain snacks.