National’s response to obesity akin to a drug policy that ignores organised crime

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When an industry turns to Cameron Slater to pay him to attack public health advocates, you know that industry works on the dark side of the force. One of the biggest revelations inside Dirty Politics was that the tobacco, alcohol and food lobby groups regularly paid for content to abuse health advocates and with the TPPA making public health issues within the jurisdiction of contract law tribunals, those who pimp fast food and sugar have never had it so good.

National’s response to obesity is the kind of regulation you call for when you don’t want to regulate. Kinda like National’s capital gains tax that isn’t a capital gains tax. Kinda like National’s health and safety standards that aren’t health and safety standards. Kinda like National’s response to unaffordable housing by ignoring demand side dynamics.

This is National Party spin when they hear from polling agencies that the voters are becoming annoyed at Government inaction. Here National are eyeing up the growing health cost of obesity and put forward a toothless lap dog of a response that looks at fat shaming as opposed to heavy handed regulation against the Fast Food Dealers and Big Sugar Mafia to combat obesity.

Main ideas will be…

  • More than 4000 obese 4-year-olds a year are expected to be referred to experts in healthy eating and physical activity under a new Government plan to tackle obesity.
  • The Advertising Standards Authority will review the code of advertising food to children. The Government acknowledges that children’s food choices are “strongly influenced by advertising”.
  • Government negotiators are discussing with food and drink industry leaders the possibility of voluntary industry pledges and changes to food labelling, marketing and advertising to children.
  • The Education Review Office, which monitors schools and early childhood centres, will do a special review of nutrition, physical activity and health.
  • A national media campaign will focus on childhood obesity.
  • Children will be given more opportunities to be physically active.

Fat shaming obese kids into feeling more self conscious about their self esteem sounds like the sort of mentality that sees a lift in suicide rates and deeper self harming depression.

This is a Government that rejoiced at allowing schools to put junk food back into tuck shops as some sort of free market moment where the nanny state was finally banished from this dimension. Now they want to finger wag at those same schools for selling the junk food that is part of the problem.

The sit down with industry to put together some whitewash response that does nothing will be a talk fest that will privately guarantee no real impediment to Fast Food Dealer and Big Sugar Mafia profit margins.

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Children will be given more time to be physical when? In a curriculum as packed full as it is within an education system under attack from charter schools, finding more time to make overweight kids truant seems churlish.

The Advertising talk will amount to nothing but a strengthening of voluntary protocols.

So what should a progressive Government do when it comes to obesity? To truly answer that question we have to acknowledge the power unregulated fast food and sugar has and that reducing their influence and profit margins are a national interest that requires hard choices. Simply pointing at the obese and blaming them for the food environment where these products dominate is a lazy solution.

Cut GST on fresh fruit and vegetables make better food cheaper – it’s that simple.

Sugar Tax and applying the proceeds directly  It’s time to tax the dirty Big Sugar Mafia. Their drug is one of the most addictive and damaging yet their dominant market position means their product is in nearly every mass produced food serving. Taxing sugar added products forces the producers to look for low sugar alternatives and puts the real cost into the price. This sugar tax would apply to soft drinks and mass produced food products that have added sugar and the tax raised would be specifically targeted towards anti-obesity programs. The second this money becomes general taxation, the bean counters don’t care about solving the problem, they care about getting more taxation.

Real union representation in fast food industry – The Fast Food Dealers are able to pump their profit margins up by using draconian employment tactics like zero hours and exploiting lax restrictions on bringing in food specialists that can’t be employed here. This has been allowed to occur because unionism has been pushed out of the industry. Re-unionising the Fast Food industry would stifle their growth to much more sustainable levels.

Clear simple food labelling with warnings – The industry will not want their products labelled, which shows why it would work. The current labelling is supposed to be confusing, a simple green light, yellow light, red light system will suffice including warnings on sugar in the product.

Better local playgrounds in poor areas – In some poorer areas, the playgrounds offered by fast food companies are like a hill billy meth DisneyLand. Young parents in poor areas only have these fast food playgrounds to go to, which then makes a purchase there mandatory.

Stop Fast Food appealing to children & real advertising restrictions – No more toys, no more cartoon cross overs, no more association with schools. That we allow these multi-billion corporations to mass market their manipulations to children who don’t have the critical abilities to do anything more than scream ‘I want that’  shows how pervasive the interests of Coke, McDonalds etc etc have become.

More publicly funded gastric bypass –   A gastric bypass is one of the most successful ways to combat obesity but the stigma attached to obesity means there is little public funding for the operation.

Food education and promotion of vegetarianism – We certainly do need better public education programs (I fear what is being proposed will simply be fat shaming kids), but that education should be understanding what food actually does to the body, promoting factory farm animal rights and promoting vegetarianism as healthy choices.

We see the obese as products of their own lack of self control rather than a reality of a food environment as unregulated as ours. The current food market is structured for the benefits of the food corporations as opposed to public health. If the Government’s only plan is to give fat children more to feel embarrassed about, it will only be to help feed the negative views society has towards the obese, it won’t be about lowering obesity.

 

 

45 COMMENTS

  1. Dont forget the ex National Party MP’s/Ministers who quietly end their parliamentary careers, slip out the door and equally silently slither into “spokesman” roles for these lobby groups, and thanks to Nicky Hager we got find out what becomes of these old Nats. Donors and party connections to law making, who says NZ is corrupt!

    You are quite right, Nationals response to polling, I mean, any issue like this is a carefully statergised light and sound display to tell the public they are listening but then, as per everything else, they then purposely do exactly nothing meaningful.

    An excellent example was their response to never ending problems caused by the promotion of alcohol. Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 section titled “Irresponsible promotion of alcohol” they purposely left out the alcohol industry from the law, protecting the very people behind irresponsible drinking.

    If this goes precisely to plan, and doing what they are doing will achieve that goal, then the good Doctor Jonathan Coleman will have nothing to show for this bullshit pantomime in improving obesity and his party’s donors will sleep easy and their investment will have been well rewarded.

  2. John Key…. family man, baby kisser, favourite jolly uncle jokester, fronts a government that puts the obscene profits of Big Sugar against the health and happiness of little children. Now we see him clearly…through the bitter embarrassed tears of the little kid harrassed and bullied at school. The bastards who push fizz and fries and lollies at children 24/7 see him too…..Sugar Daddy Key.

  3. Interesting if you look at photos of kids and adults in the 50s and earlier …they are all skinny

    Interesting also that doctors are saying that a referral for obesity is not going to do anything

    imo for what it is worth:

    ….all kids should be taught vege gardening and how to make easy cheap vegetarian meals using lentils , rice, potatoes, vege soups, pasta, eggs, porridge, salads, fruit smoothies using yoghurt

    …and meat dishes using cheap cuts of meat( eg slow cooking stewing steak, liver, kidneys…)…curries and spices for taste

    …gluten free flour, olive oil and butter for cooking

    ….and water/ milk/tea/coffee for drinking( 1 litre of water a day)

    …with the emphasis that home cooking is best

    taxes and red warning stickers should be put on products…soft drinks and anything supposedly healthy bought with excessive amounts of sugar eg. milo , baked beans,

    …exercising /walking for an hour a day is also good…especially when so much time is spent on computers

    (btw… i don’t follow my own advice)

      • I think communal kitchens would be a good idea…maybe in secondary school home economics classrooms

        a lot of what we eat is habit ….and many habits are formed young in our families

  4. The more I hear from “nutritionists” and “dieticians” about obesity and taxing sugar (previously fat), the more I’m convinced there is no science whatsoever involved in their training/education. Sugar is but one component in the problem, and not even a very large one. There are three food groups, carbohydrates, protein, and fat. And that’s it, all of your daily energy needs come from these sources. The problem with ALL carbohydrates (which are complex sugars) is that they are rapidly converted by enzymes in the stomach into their simple sugars constituents and absorbed into your system. Since you don’t need all of the energy all at once, your body converts it to fat. Potatoes (French fries, chips, mash), pasta, grain products (cereals, bread etc), are essentially indistinguishable for your body as just eating spoonfuls of straight sugar. You can trivially test this fact (if you don’t believe me) with a glucose meter (used by diabetics), which can be bought for around $40 on eBay.
    Fats, protein and green vegetables on the other hand, take a long time to metabolise. So you don’t end up immediately hungry after eating them and the energy is released far more gradually – roughly in step with what your body requires at any given time (other than when exerting yourself).
    IMO, we have to change our entire eating paradigm if we want to address the obesity epidemic, and no one is talking about that. Why?
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2472672/Is-high-fat-diet-GOOD-heart-Doctors-say-carbs-damaging-arteries.html
    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/you-dont-need-to-do-one-iota-of-exercise-to-lose-weight-says-scientific-study-10197434.html
    http://live.smashthefat.com/why-i-didnt-get-fat/
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?_r=2
    http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2014/03/diabetes-australia-bungles-dietary-advice/

      • What difference does that make? They are citing international studies and commentary from professors and doctors. Probably effectively the same article can be found in any number of newspapers, given how few news sources there are these days.
        Also your ad hominum attack is completely unwarranted. I’m surprised the moderator let your post through given that it contains no relevant content whatsoever.

        • I over reacted and it was off topic. I apologise.

          You are right. Glucose and other liquid sugars are everywhere in supermarkets. Even chocolate isn’t chocolate any more. It should be labeled milk and sugar.

          We have the triangle of death 1)convenience 2)quality 3)abundance. We can only have two and unfortunately the way the education system is set up. We will never be able to attain quality food in supermarkets.

          I would like that to change because then my nephew will be able to microwave his own chicken nuggets.

    • As far as I can see there is no correlation between the education around food (for example the approved food pyramid) and results in the general population.

      There is however clear research that shows our bodies react to wheat in the same way we do opium.

      The best way of finding out if removing wheat/sugar/processed foods is good for you is to try it out.

      • If we were to create a food supply chain based on whole foods. End users would have to first move closer to producers so food manufactures wouldn’t have to jam food full of additives and preservatives.

        End users would also have to learn how to cook more than three dishes.

      • disagree…I know personally of at least three people ( two under 30 and one just over) who have taken large quantities of diet drinks/coke with adverse affects…seizures, epilepsy unable to drive in two of the cases…and diagnosis of brain cancer in the third and an early death…it was enough anecdotal evidence for me to do some searching…there is a huge amount of evidence out there…both anecdotal and scientific research …people should do their own searches and make up their own minds…here is just one result

        http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/hidden_dangers.htm

  5. Quite a few of us are taking charge of our own health and the health of our family, so we ain’t waiting for any government or doctors to cut the sugar, carbs (yes even fresh fruits which are loaded with fructose) and grains from our diet, and load up on animal sourced fats and eat a moderate amount of animal sourced proteins. No more obesity, diabetes, cardio vascular disease, alzheimer, cancer, aiuto immune diseases. And a happy by product of this approach is that we will put a few big pharmas out of business, and the TPPA will NOT help them one bit because there is NOTHING in the diet that they put a patent on. This is bottom up approach to health, using the wisdom of crowd, rather than the useless top down approach using biased experts and venal politicians.

    • Hooray, finally a left winger that shows something called personal responsibility. Nobody forces food down your throat, the only thing that is forced apon us is tax which is used to pay for a socialist health care system and this is the cause of the obesity problem as their is no personal responsibility it doesn’t matter how fat or thin you are you pay according to how much you earn.
      If we all went private health care, which is what we should you would be in charge of your own health and would have to pay higher premiums if you were a greater burden.

      • That is a rediculous claim. By your logic all the tax exemptions and incentives junk food operators receive should be scraped as well

      • ” Nobody forces food down your throat”

        Except, Stephen that unhealthy foods are generqally cheaper. And unhealthy foods are loaded with fat, salt, and sugar, to make the body crave them.

        In other words, food producers know precisely how to make such foods addictive. So there is little choice involved when you crave the stuff.

      • “If we all went private health care, which is what we should you would be in charge of your own health and would have to pay higher premiums if you were a greater burden. ”

        Because private healthcare works wonderfully in the US, doesn’t it, Stephen?

        Tell me when the last time was that you accessed free hospital care in this country?

        Your Act ideology serves the rich and penalises the poor. In other words, it’s rubbish.

      • Yes, because of course we all want to be as healthy as Americans. Or maybe not.

        I prefer universal health care as provided by most civilised countries in the world who also happen to appear at the top of most health and life expectancy league tables.

        • Mexico has put a 10% on all junk food. Now Mexicans consume 10% less junk food.

          And it’s not like children drive themselves to shops every day to buy lollies. Often parents won’t even see there children eating lollies. Because lollies are given to children for all sorts of reasons. Doctors clinics, student of the day awards, going over to a mates place.

          Children are surrounded by lollies. Because people like to reward children with lollies.

          • You guys also need an education in the daily fail.

            They are the kings of taking one word, they don’t even have to check if it’s true, and creating entire stories and investigations into unsubstantiated claims. For instance.

            A daily fail report was published citing anonymous Iraqi foreign ministry officials claims two U.S. Fighter jets had been shot down over Iraq, then it was one Jet, then it was two Blackhawks, then one. Each time citing the same Iraqi Official.

            In reality what had happened is a U.S government contractor had sent supplies behind ISIS lines in a busted up Iroquois, the air crew decided not to fly back through the man portable surface to air missile infested area so they ditched the helo and caught a ride with armoured ISF ground forces.

            The daily fail lie and continue to lie for click purposes so much there articals are not even worth rapping fish and chips in.

  6. So, is not taxing unhealthy food an example of what can happen if the TPPA is signed? That a government can’t restrict profits? Even if it is in the best interests of health and wellbeing?

  7. The current government (and those since 1975) have all had drug policy (legislation) that ignores organised crime – otherwise many drugs would have been decriminalised or legalised ages ago. In the mean time ‘legal’ drugs like alcohol and tobacco continue to cause carnage both here and overseas in countries with similar ‘policies’

  8. I’m not a great fan of taxing sugar only because I don’t think it will be effective. However, the government’s ‘plan’ is pretty pathetic and plays right into the hands of industry.

    Industry loves:
    1. Calories in/calories out theory which states that you can eat burgers and donuts all day so long as you behave moderately. No problem with going to McD’s every day, just keep those calories down or….
    2. Exercise cures everything (it doesn’t), so eat what you like and keep you weight down by running marathons (or forcing kids to do it)
    3. Universities who ‘work with industry’ which means that they fund studies and pay for academic holidays and fancy new cars in return for them promoting pro-sugar messages
    4. Voluntary pledges which are used to promote fast food consumption even more
    5. Access to schools, so that they can craft the next generation of customers

    Hmmm…. pretty much looks like National party policy doesn’t it.

    Bear in mind, a bad diet is bad for everyone, fat and skinny alike. Focusing on fat people will leave a group who eat junk and never exercise who believe that they are healthy. These people still get diabetes, heart disease and cancer, but don’t realise that they are at risk too.

    • So you to do nothing and critique every initiative as hopeless.

      Taxes is the governments best tool for changing behaviour. And what.

      • Taxes only ‘work’ because they reinforce the belief that changes need to happen. The greatest drop in the incidence of smoking came about when people realised that they were bad for you after years of being reassured by the tobacco industry that they are harmless. There was also legislation restricting smoking in offices and public places. Taxation probably had a small effect.

        A tax on sugar is a clear message to people that we shouldn’t be eating it. It’s not the extra 5c on a bottle of pop that stops people drinking sugary drinks. It’s the knowledge that it is doing harm.

        In other words, it’s transparancy and education that causes behavioural change, not taxes.

        • My biggest gripe with taxing cigarets and / or sugar is the funds generated never seem to reach the Health budget.

          If it was up to me I would put the budget on a block chain so every time the Prime Minister makes a change to the budget. It is beamed out to every one in real time.

          But unfortunately the whole NOVA pay thing probably means my idea won’t happen for a long time.

  9. Martyn, couldn’t agree more with your suggestions for real action. BUT – do it all before TTPA becomes ratified, or this country will get its arse sued off it by big corporations!

    • Iv always found the way the U.S. And other countries totally ignore U.N request to pay up.

      Maybe we could also tell cooperations and ISD tribunals to get stuffed.

  10. What is it about PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY that you people don’t understand?

    It’s the parents fault a child goes to school with no breakfast

    Likewise it’s a parents fault a child is fed a sugar heavy diet.

    Stop pandering to drop-kick parents!

    • Andrew, there is no point in harping on about “parental responsibility” if incomes do not allow for the basics in life. Even National Ministers have admitted that welfare benefits are unlivable. And the “working poor” is a phenomenon where those in low-paying jobs cannot meet their bills; rent, transport, medical, groceries, etc.

      You are victim-blaming to avoid thinking through the problem and considering the entire picture. Blaming others means you don’t have to think deeply on this – just parrot the same old garbage.

      You need to think.

      As for “heavy sugar diets” – next time you’re at the supermarket, have a look at the sugar/fat/salt content of processed foods. Do you know what the sugar content of, say, Watties Tomato sauce is?

      You may be surprised: one third is sugar.

      It is diabolical to find low-sugar foods. Even “low-fat” yoghurts are topped up with sugar.

      • The Loony Left is, as usual, all over the place. One minute they’re moaning that poor families can’t provide breakfast for their children and the next they’re proposing to tax sugar because it’s making (mostly the same) people fat.

        A bag of porridge oats costs two bucks at Countdown. It lasts me over a week: There ARE no excuses!

        The core issue here: These people are stupid.

        They don’t understand the basics of nutrition and cannot manage their finances.

        Maybe the government should tax stupidity?

        • Foreigners buy kiwi dollars because our democracy suck less than the democracies immergrants come from. That means the government will always Beatle to fund itself

          The government would bankrupt its self if they listened to you.

          You are doing New Zealand a huge disservice with your dribble.

          You assume average kiwis have enough money after paying rent to pay power bills just to cook porrodge. That is exactly the paradigm that calculates incorrectly GDP figures.

          The ultimate confusion comes from the expansion of credit leading to the expansion of GDP, that to is braking down as debt markets relies New Zealand has reached its debt limits. The average citizens have a sense of unease around this dichotomy but they do not understand what is happening. Citi Groups Mat King summarises this dilemma as –

          “Models linking QE to markets seems to have broken down”

          National credit is taking off, leaving GDP behind which leads me to believe what I have been describing is accurate.

          Sam

        • The kids I see every day clutching super sugared bottles of V or Red Bull for breakfast are not just poor kids, they are from all walks of life.
          When they consume such drinks, they are not thinking about nutrition, they are wanting a sugar fix.
          When kids think it is normal to have a sugar fix each morning instead of proper food then the messages have gone seriously wrong somewhere.
          If it is not addressed we will steadily become a nation of diabetics.

          • There’s truth there Mike: Stupid parents are confined to the ranks of the poor.

            Like I suggested, maybe we should tax stupidity?

        • The problem is you are expecting parents today to have a superior knowledge of nutrition than your grandparents or great grandparent did, and when they don’t you judge them for failing to meet that higher standard.

          Parents raising kids in the 60’s and 70’s didn’t have expert knowledge of nutrition. The simply went out to the shops, bought what they could afford off the shelf and went home to fed it to their kids. They didn’t know if it was low/high fat, low/high carb, or what proportion of protein was in the food. They just bought it and fed it to their kids. There was no childhood obesity back then but this was not due to the wisdom of parents at the time.

          It’s clear that we need to educate people to counter the billions of dollars spent telling parents that it’s ok to buy junk food. At the moment the government appears to be satisfied with leaving it up to industry to continue with it’s current education programme.

          Who is there to tell them that the following diet is a high sugar diet: cereal, orange juice, a piece of fruit, sandwich for lunch, raisins for break and pasta for dinner. I am aware that what I have just described is an unhealthy diet – are you?

        • The core issue here: These people are stupid.

          No, the core issue is that you and other RWNJs are stupid and ignorant. Watch the video I posted below and you may come to understand that a lot of obesity in the world comes directly back to the policies you espouse.

          A bag of porridge oats costs two bucks at Countdown. It lasts me over a week:

          And has a huge amount of carbohydrates which increases obesity.

          Humans need a varied diet – not just oats.

    • It’s the parents fault a child goes to school with no breakfast

      No it’s not – it’s societies fault for not ensuring that people have enough to live on and instead giving all the wealth to a few bludgers.

      Likewise it’s a parents fault a child is fed a sugar heavy diet.

      Nope. Again society is at fault for allowing advertising and not putting in place regulations regarding the amount of sugar allowed to be added to food.

  11. Portrait of a killer

    It’s a video about stress and how it affects the human body. One of those effects is an increase in obesity.

    Numerous other negative effects are also related to stress and one of the things that Nationals policies do is increase stress on the majority of people especially those on benefits.

    National is, quite literally, killing us.

  12. Another thing we can expect from the National government is to try and sucker Labour into backing their measures, based on what they know will be the MSM response if Labour doesn’t. Labour will rightly point out that they are toothless and inadequate but that won’t mean anything to our glorious MSM who have already decided what they will say after consultation with their National party mentors.
    I can see it now, Mike Hosking interviewing John Key and everyone agreeing all round that Labour are a pack of kiddie haters, just as they are anti-trade, anti-roads, anti-employment, anti-farmers, anti-Chinese, anti-small business owners, pro-beneficiaries and pro-crims – and probably a few others thrown in as well.
    This is the way that National gets second and third rate legislation through the House, by having their media toadies shame everyone who raises any word of protest. The fact that it very often has to be amended later to fix up all the glaring faults always escapes MSM notice.
    The trouble with having an ineffective opposition to government, and I don’t just mean a parliamentary opposition, is that the government is not held to account, and this means it can go one step further than coasting, which is called wanking.

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