Obesity challenge: Crack down on junk food ads, takeaway shops, says Helen Clark Foundation
- A third of NZ adults are obese and policies focused on individual responsibility are failing, a new report says.
- Tackling obesity will require cracking down on junk food advertising, the proliferation of takeaways, and bringing in new levies on unhealthy products.
- The Government has not committed to any changes, but says it is ‘actively seeking advice’ on nutrition changes.
I love that the Helen Clark Foundation have the intellectual power to challenge deep issues, they did it recently by pointing out how un-insurable so much of NZs coastline will be thanks to climate change (the solution of course is a new National insurance plan alongside Council buy outs of land) and they have done it again here with this hard hitting attack on Big Sugar and Fast Food Corporations.
We are never allowed to attack Fast Food or Big Sugar for the negative impacts their product cause.
For many in poor areas, the local fast food amusement park is the only recreational space, for time poor and desperate people Fast Food is an immediate dopamine boost in a grim life of depression exacerbated by the food they eat.
Tobacco and Booze pay for the health damage their products cause, Fast Food and Big Sugar never do.
Why do we allow huge corporations the freedom to pollute and not pay an extra dividend on that product for the social harm their product causes?
Human Beings are pre-programmed to seek out fat and sugar, it was a very important evolutionary advantage for our early evolved selves hunting on the African plains.
Those drives are easy to manipulate and in a land of plenty that drive for fat and sugar has triggered an obesity epidemic.
The insanity of the First World being obese while the 3rd World starves should not be lost on any of us.
Obesity doesn’t just cause immense physical damage, it generates a gnawing depression and self loathing that makes the lives of many obese mental torture.
That loss of self-esteem plays out in a million different ways.
Most of them very negative.
So the physical and mental carnage generated by Fast Food and Big Sugar is there, but utterly ignored and never critically analysed.
They need an immediate sugar tax on all soft drinks to help pay for Free Dental for all Kiwis.
They need a vice tax aimed at the final profit margin alongside restrictions for advertising and while we remove GST from Supermarket and groceries food, GST should stay on all Fast Food.
That’s for starters.
In terms of the Obesity issue, we need more subsidies towards gastric sleeve surgery, we need these new generation of weight loss drugs to be available for free and we need a lot more Green Prescriptions that give free Gym membership and physical activity as the medicine.
Fast Food Corporations and Big Sugar Interests have been allowed to peddle their damaging product with zero accountability.
That should stop now.
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Physical Literacy ( walking, running & playing sport) should be way more important in school s than what it is. Helps mental health also
$ Big fast food and sugar corporate s should ‘ chippie in’.and pay tax.
and yet people want the GST taken off food so where will the money come from for the health care ?.At present that is the only tax on these foods .
Unfortunately many of the leaders in the Maori and Pacifica area are overweight.
It’s common among poor white people as well so nationality is not the problem, what we loosely call culture or lifestyle would be my explanation for most obesity. Most jobs are sedentary and the way we live requires significantly less physical effort than a few generations ago while processed food is everywhere. Taxing unhealthy food to reduce demand and pay for health cost sounds like a great idea.
Well there’s plenty of corpulent Pakeha. Look at the US, Australia etc.
as are many leaders in the pakeha world ,Jerry Brownlee comes to mind and the PM has put on at least 10 kg in the last year .
Mate spend an hour sitting in the local shopping mall and see the scale of the problem .Then take off your anti Maori glasses and look at it as a nz PROBLEM THAT WE ALL NEED TO FIX .
Interesting that these purveyors of junk food have been outed as donors to trump’s election campaign as well. It wouldn’t be surprising if they ensure silence here, in a similar way.
It calls for a massive boycott of their products. But people have to know who they are before they’d be interested. And even then, as the article says, we have evolved to seek out fat and sugar.
It makes a miserable life slightly bearable.
Who is causing the miserable lives?
Just a big vicious cycle, isn’t it.
Obesity is largely driven by cheap fast carbohydrates (potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, cereals etc) that are metabolically identical to just eating straight sugar, which, when combined with seed oils (used in margarine, deep fried food etc) that are literal poison and cause rampant inflammation in your arteries is why human health has been steadily declining in since the 1960’s.
I detest behavioral taxes.
lol – had to laugh when Trump made RFK sit down on the plane with McDonalds in front of him – I wonder if he ate it or was held down while Grimace gave him one.
I’d support a sugar tax – I can afford it.
Obesity is only the tip of the iceberg. Type 2 diabetes, poor gut health, the growing connection between low nutrional density and degenerative brain disease, processed foods are the culprit. Processed sugar is particularly harmful. And its everywhere. Let’s not play the blame game’ easy as it is to do. Let’s not point a finger at this ethnicity or that. Let’s not simply say it’s free choice. If Fast Food and Big Sugar won’t come to the party, if they won’t heed the evidence, and why should they in a capitalist system where growing market share and making profit comes before public health concerns, then time
for serious regulation. A sugar dax combined with gst reduction on high nutrional density food would benefit the public health system in spade fulls, and quite frankly improve everyone’s wellbeing. Too hard? Insufficient political will?Fear of litigation? Not enough evidence? Misinformation by those with vested interests? Little wonder the current state of affairs is unsustainable.
Once again a poverty driven situation .Untill everyone can afford to buy the right foods and supermarkets are prevented from selling the bad food we will have a problem .Most of the highly processed food is imported so do a Trump and place a 100% tariff on them every year till they are no longer affordable .
Poverty? No doubt a factor. But I don’t buy it as an excuse. A cottage pie with some in season veges, even frozen the experts say. A cassirole or stew, not three canned stuff. Surely that is affordable even for those on a tight budget. But preparing and eating/sharing a meal involves a bit more than the cost of the ingredients. Priorities. A routine. Yep, many of our grandparents knew how to stretch the budget. Money was tight – but even then some found a way to gamble it away or piss it up against a wall. And few fast food outlets back in the day. Soft drinks a real luxury. People had time to eat together.
Yes, I agree, poverty a factor but individual choice, priorities, will power, health literacy, family life all in the mix.
Good article Martyn
Once upon a time being fat was considered shameful as your body was outing you for gluttony or boozing.
Less sedentry screens, more physical work and join the ‘slow food’ movement.
“the new generation of weight loss drugs for free” Really? Create a big pharma customer for the rest of the obese person’s life.
https://youtu.be/YUvjdmjdbiw?feature=shared
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