Wednesday 20 November 2013

"Tobacco Today But Other Consumer Products WILL Follow"

Hey, Deborah Arnott, prepare for more embarrassment. Remember this?
[...] the “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.
Yes, we're testing that comedy staple Myth #7 again today.
Myth #7: It may be tobacco today but other consumer products will follow
FACT: Tobacco is not like any other product
No-one seems to have told Aussie nurse Rhonda Wilson about this 'patently false' bit. She sees fast food as a product crying out for the same treatment so she does, inspired directly by her country's plain packaging law ('sic' throughout).
Exactly the same messages could be echoed for fast food. I am thinking of especially the large companies who mass produce fast foods…. you know who they are…. they are dominated by bright attractive colours in their ‘restaurants’, and on their packaging…they include ‘nutritional facts’ on their labels (that you need a magnifying glass to read). They have cheap options to lure the cash poor….and they have meal deals and family meal deals which include fizzy sugary drinks to the mostly fried mix! 
It is not rocket science  – this stuff…hard to refer to it as food! This stuff is really, really bad for people to consume. It directly causes BAD health.  There is a clear and obvious cause and effect….. if you eat a lot of fast food + sugary drinks you will get fat, have cardiac disease, diabetes, diminished mental health… the list goes on…. other blog posts of mine have discussed food security and the excess of poor quality food… 
Fast food is addictive – our brains crave the saturated and transfats, and the more we have…the more we crave. It is fact.
There is another stark similarity too. Exactly like plain fag packs, she doesn't care that there is no evidence whatsoever to promote her snobbish prejudices above the public's right to freedom of choice without hindrance.
Would plain packaging and plain signage restrictions make a difference? I'm not sure that the evidence is out there to say it would help…. but in terms of health, I can’t see that it would do any harm to try!
Looks uncannily like a bona fide 'domino effect', doesn't it?


11 comments:

Bucko TheMoose said...

""I can’t see that it would do any harm to try""


Just take a look at the harm the smoking ban did to the pub trade. Or is harm in her eyes, only something that can happen to the consumer and not the producer / seller?

JonathanBagley said...

It's a shame she can't read the nutritional information on a big mac and medium fries. She would find it to be a very nutritious meal. Shame they stopped cooking their chips in animal fat. It would be even better.

Rob said...

I've had a brilliant idea.

If people eat 'bad' food because of the packaging, why not pass a law mandating that healthy food be packaged in glitzy, colourful packaging?

The plebs will have no option but to buy it and eat it, because we all know its the packaging which drives demand, don't we?

Dick_Puddlecote said...

A faultless plan! Can't possibly fail. :)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

The assault on fast food is mostly driven by snobbery and oneupmanship. I suspect this woman's opinions have been formed the same way.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

The downsides of prohibitionist policies are always ignored when they are lobbying for legislation, so they also have to be ignored (or lied about) when they actually materialise. They never see the demonstrable harm they cause, but always see benefits where none ever exist. This is why only the very best liars rise to the top of the public health industry, such superlative selective sight is a very difficult skill to master.

Ripper said...

"Fast food is addictive – our brains crave the saturated and transfats, and the more we have…the more we crave. It is fact."


Translation - "Being a nannying fussbucket bansturbator is addictive - our brains crave new things to ban every day and the more we ban, the more we crave. It is a fact."

rick said...

Penn and Teller's "bullshit" series looked at fast food. They compared it to a fancy menu in a very expensive restaurant. The sauce alone which was made with cream had more calories than a big mac. Conclusion was that ithe health concerns re: fast food result from snobbery and a mean desire to order people about.

BenPal said...

" if you eat a lot of fast food + sugary drinks you will get fat," That's true for all the food, not just fast food. Fast food is composed of meat, bread and potatoes, what's wrong with that?

prog said...

Ties in nicely with Chris Snowdon's latest...

Alcohol Awareness Week: Low income drinkers

http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/

JonathanBagley said...

Thanks for the P&T ref Rick. I'll look that up.