You've all been bad - you don't know how to look after yourselves. Those bad bad fast food companies nearly force you to eat burgers, chips, pizzas and all sorts of desserts that do so much harm to you. You're lazy and Nanny is so concerned, because you're too stupid to figure it out for yourself. You apparently don't know that eating lots of high fat and high sugar food, and sitting around watching TV makes you obese. tsk tsk. Fortunately, Nanny through Helen Clark, Pete Hodgson and others knows better and she is taking a bit of your money to tell you off.
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It's called an epidemic - although an epidemic is the definition of a disease which is spread from person to person. Obesity is not a disease - it cannot be caught - it is, in most cases, a matter of lifestyle. You cannot wakeup one morning and find you caught it, neither can you take a pill and be cured of it. It involves a combination of mind and body, but hey... calling it an epidemic helps transfer responsibility to Nanny.
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Apparently there is going to be a lot of promotion, including government funded websites promoting healthy eating (because it is such rocket science - what idiot thinks eating KFC every night is good for them?).
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There is going to be something called a "screen free" promotion to encourage people to not be in front of TV and computers. Yes - the same government that takes your taxes to subsidise TV programmes and owns two of the main free to air TV networks - the same government that has virtually fully funded Maori television - the same government that is going to use your taxes to subsidise the introduction of terrestrial digital TV - wants to spend more of your money to encourage people to NOT watch TV? Yes that is right. Presumably you watch the wrong sorts of TV, stupid idiots - Nanny knows you're incapable of making these choices without her helping you out.
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There is going to be "health impact assessments" for government policies, which should be entertaining for bureaucrats to consider. Increasing welfare benefits might be argued as encouraging obesity for example.
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Clark, fresh from calling Don Brash corrosive and cancerous says "With the right resources young people, their families and their communities can act together to make healthier choices". Resources! As Bob Jones once said, resources is code for money. I tell you what resource people need - their fucking brains.
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I remember at school being taught the food pyramid, yeah there wasn't the understanding about GI and the effects of carbs on weight, but it was broadly right. Eat mostly fruit, veges and grains. eat some fish, meat, dairy products, eat few fast foods, desserts, cakes, biscuits and soft drinks. This was twenty years ago!
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Don't tell me about health costs, because that is what a public health system creates. It is meant to give everyone a similar level of service, and you shouldn't be punishing people for being stupid - after all, the health system happily patches up people injured from killing others on the road , it patches up criminals and it patches up people taking enormous risks. If you don't like the cost, then shift to an insurance model where people pay for their lifestyle risks - suddenly they might behave differently (some wont, but they really shouldn't be breeding anyway - there is a growing pool of global idiots breeding idiots that 21st century life protects from killing themselves through being stupid).
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In Britain, the Nanny Statists have been out and loud, and fast food establishments responded - and found out that including salads on their menus was a failure. Nobody went to Burger King for a salad, so plenty of them were being thrown out at the end of the day. People wanted big meaty cheesey baconey fatty burgers that would clog their arteries - they KNEW it wasn't that healthy - but they DON'T GIVE A DAMN!
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and I am pleased. I am pleased because one of the most sickening phenomena nowadays are the pursed lipped mean spirited do-gooders who want to run everyone else's lives. They don't want you to smoke, drink, drive fast, eat fried food, be promiscuous, watch too much TV and other things that "aren't good for you". More recently they pull the environmental guilt trip - and they LOVE telling you off.
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Nanny Clark loves telling you off too. Robyn Toomath of Fight the Obesity Epidemic (what a joyless existence that must be - don't have cake dont have chocolate don't have chips finger pointing like a head prefect) says there must be "legislation" and supports curbs on advertising of foods she doesn't like. This is the same organisation that supports the view that building new roads makes people fat - because apparently you should be walking or biking the several kms uphill between Petone and Johnsonville instead of driving on the proposed new road. "FOE's initial focus is to improve children's nutrition through legislation, regulation, taxation and education" the site says.
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Ve vill make zee kids healthy by making it against zee law to feed zem things zat are bad for zem. Ve vill TAX zee bad foods und ve vill hide zee bad foods from zem und zat is only a start"
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- How about phasing out state welfare so that poor families aren't getting subsidised to be obese? How about shifting healthcare to an insurance model so initially the parents are incentivised to eat more healthily (and then kids)?
- How about FOE spending its OWN money on advertising to promote healthy eating - you know, like manufacturers of healthy foods already do?
- How about it being accepted this is the parents' responsibility and there is a massive social stigma against obesity, especially during teens - and this can do far more to encourage exercise and healthy eating that nannying kids?
- How about stop wrapping kids in cotton wool, so they don't go out and play without supervision, without safety nazis trying to protect them from climbing trees and exploring their neighbourhood?
- How about promoting a culture of esteem, self confidence, individual responsibility and the wonder of the human mind and body, so that young people don't turn to food for comfort in a society that worships vapid heros, attention seeking and obnoxiousness?
- How about considering how little young people will listen to Helen Clark, when they hear her calling her opponent corrosive and cancerous, and what that does to the political zeitgeist?
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