cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22143130
Holy shit. Parents should be really embarrassed about this. It wasn’t Timmy buying deadly sugar solution because it was the cheapest thing that’s not water.
That’s the only logical conclusion from the correlation with tax, right?
The other conclusion could also be, that Timmies parents just do not have enough money anymore to spend this on a daily basis on that sugar bombs. Lack of money and lack of education often going hand in hand.
It is heartbreaking to see that some parents should never had become children. If they endanger their kids BC/ they are not able to distinguish between information and advertising on that level. I think we’re doomed as a society for exactly that reason. These are exactly the people voting for brexit, Trump or Nazi scumbags in Europe.
Great, now all the undernourished kids with poor parents are going to drink water instead and lose weight to dangerously unhealthy levels.
According to The Guardian (same source as this article), the number of children in food poverty in the UK is 4 million. 15% of UK households went hungry in January. Now, soda isn’t the smartest source of calories in a kid’s diet. It’s expensive and low in other nutrients. But kids aren’t always smart. A poor kid thinks “I’m hungry, I have a few pounds, there’s a vending machine, problem solved”. If the soda is too expensive, that doesn’t mean the kid is going to go to Aldi, buy some potatoes, and roast them for a cheap and nutritious meal. They’re a kid! It means they’ll pay more or go without. Which means you’re making the poverty and malnutrition problem worse.
First of all, the tax is 18-24p per litre. No one is denying their children sodas because they can’t afford to pay that.
Secondly, there are a vast number of exceptions. These kids could be getting the sugar you seem to think is necessary for their lives from juice or powdered drinks, which can be just as sugary, if not more so, than sodas. And the latter are usually cheaper.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-your-drink-is-liable-for-the-soft-drinks-industry-levy
Has it improved health or reduced obesity, though? That’s kind of the interesting thing, here. What has happened to overall calorie consumption?
Everything about public health policy sucks. The best way to improve nutrition and health is by making eating healthy affordable and easy. It’s too hard and expensive for working people to prepare healthy meals for a family also working 40+ hours a week.
So many myths and pseudoscience around health, wellness, etc. Basically everything that is talked about is based on really shaky science at best, and outright lies and nonsense at worst. Way too much emphasis is put on weight loss, dieting, waist circumference and so on. Dieting is hugely unhealthy, weight cycling (losing and regaining weight) has worse health implications than just remaining at your original weight, and for most people the weight they are is fine, the health risks around weight are hugely overstated. The BMI is a worthless metric without any scientific basis. Almost everything that people say about sugar is wrong - it’s not physiologically addictive, it doesn’t cause hyperactivity and it’s not poisonous, and it doesn’t cause type 2 diabetes - the causes of type 2 diabetes are generally not well understood.
The most important thing is having a varied diet with some fruit and vegetables and getting some regular activity - something that you enjoy! Doesn’t have to be major or whatever, if it’s just going for a walk or paintball or whatever, that’s great!
Fad diets are hugely unhealthy, in general, and should be avoided.
I feel like you’re taking a grain of truth way too far. The diet-health connection is subtle and poorly understood, but being morbidly obese or eating a really unvaried, processed diet are definitely known to cause harm.
BMI is shitty because it’s too coarse a measure at the individual level. Unfortunately a volumetric scan to measure internal visceral fat just isn’t as convenient.
Having a very high weight is known to cause harm, but so is having a low weight, and so is skydiving. Dieting is more harmful to 90% of us than our waistline is, and yet we approve of dieting and refer to fat people as an epidemic.
Yes, because there’s a sudden abundance of overweight people, not underweight people. Epidemic refers to any sudden population increase of a health problem. I don’t think public health people mean it to be stigmitising.
Dieting is dumb though, you’re right about that. At least locally the authorities try to be clear that you’ve got to make a lasting lifestyle change.
Shits on pseudoscientific dietary advice
Provides shitty dietary advice
What on Earth are you even blabbering about? The headline says the measure helped kids drink less soda. It fucking worked.
That measures an effect, not an outcome. Is the goal to improve health, or to sell less sugary drinks? All of the evidence we have around using low-calorie sweeteners is that it does not displace the consumption of other dietary sugars, because there is a compensatory effect.
I invite you to point out what part of my advice you consider to be “shitty”, and back up your case with evidence - because I actually know what I’m talking about.
Healthy food doesn’t get advertising or status symbolism. When’s the last time you saw an ad for cabbage, carrots, or dry lentils?
The affordability is less of a problem than you think.
If healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, etc. were subsidised instead of animal products then they’d essentially be free. Affordability is a huge problem, at least here in the UK. Thousands of people use food banks because they’re struggling with the cost of living. vegan btw
Grains and beans being subsidized would be great, but it would probably make them negative in price. You’d get paid to get them from a store.
People who think that “vegan diet” or “plant based diet” means “you eat mostly fruits and veggies” are simply and dangerously wrong.
Yep, and all our pop now tastes like ass with the vile sweeteners so fewer people drink it.
Drink water.
The choice between sugar and aspartame is the choice between diabetes and cancer.
Just give it up. Pop ain’t worth it.
Fuck this, people should be able to drink soda if they want to. We’re on a dying planet, this just penalizes poor people and takes away their choices. Let people have a moment of pleasure. You can drink soda and drink water.
They can. They just need to pay a little more. We’re talking 25 pence per liter at most compared to no sugar tax. Higher sugar intake is correlated with obesity which means more health problems which is more expense for the NHS. It’s like a train ticket or gas taxes or taxes in general, some percentage of usage that causes the problem needs to pay for the thing that deals with the consequences or expenses that solve it.
It’s the companies who have decided that they would rather sell shit soda, and consumers who are probably unwilling to pay anything except the cheapest price possible - wealth inequality and poverty problems aside because that’s a different social policy that should not be addressed through a sugar tax.
Telling someone they should give up something that’s bad for them is not stopping them from doing it.
The person you replied to is not stopping anyone from drinking soda and, as long as you have an extra 25p, no one is stopping anyone in Britain from drinking a litre of the most sugary of sodas.
