It’s Time to Take on the Greed of the Food & Beverage Industry

Dec 5, 2024 | America has a diabetes and obesity crisis. And it’s not happening by accident. Junk foods are designed to be addictive, like cigarettes and alcohol. The FDA must act. Corporations cannot put their profits ahead of the health of our children.

For children to be brought up in a healthy way, mothers need to stay at home to cook for their children and care for them, as mothers always used to do. A mother’s place is in the home, not in the boardroom! When children were raised in traditional households, type-2 diabetes and obesity were a rarity. Good wholesome food could be cooked by the mother from scratch for her family. She had the time to cook for the family. These days, with mothers out working, they return home after work exhausted, so look for quick solutions to put food on the table for the family. Yes, nutrition labels, etc, will help, but they will not solve the problem entirely.

Children do not bring themselves up. They need to be brought up. Governments could do a great deal to make it possible for mothers to be able to afford to stay at home. Tax advantages and a universal basic income (UBI) could do lots to help make this possible for mothers again. Further, the Internet has also made it possible for people to earn a living from home.

What I have written here applies to traditional families. But the same could apply for gay families. One of the couple could stay at home to care for the children, and provide good, nutritious, sensible food for them instead of the junk they have to eat these days.

A healthy nation is built on healthy lifestyles. We have tried to re-invent the wheel and, as a result, we have got ourselves into an awful mess.

Oh, and by the way, there’s another positive with mothers at home: they can more easily help boost Western nations’ dangerously low birth rates. When birth rates are too low, we must import foreigners with alien values to provide a workforce for industry and commerce. Isn’t this one main reason why values and ideas in the West are changing so rapidly, and why many towns and cities are becoming unrecognisable? Demographic changes are accelerating. So, this isn’t only about type-2 diabetes and obesity. – © Mark Alexander

Starmer’s Killjoy State

Sep 18, 2024 | Banning smoking in beer gardens. Banning ‘junk food’ advertising. Weighing people at work. The UK’s new Labour government is putting the ‘nanny state’ on steroids. Worst of all, it’s already committed to bringing in the total prohibition of cigarettes – a move that will upend our liberties and fuel the black market. Here, Tom Slater explains why this obsession with policing our lifestyles has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with pushing ordinary people around. This is about the ruling classes forcing their own miserable ways on the rest of us, while blithely ignoring the disastrous consequences of their authoritarianism.

One can but despise Starmer. This man is the closest leader this country has ever had to the man history knows as Der Führer!

Death to the Nanny State! Death to Starmer's authoritarian regime! – © Mark Alexander

“More and More Rubbish” | Keir Starmer Slammed over Nanny State Policies

Sep 13, 2024 | On Thursday, a written statement from health minister Andrew Gwynne said the Government would introduce a 9pm watershed on junk food advertising on TV and online, as well as a total ban on paid-for online ads. Head of lifestyle economics at IEA Chris Snowdon joins Talks Peter Cardwell to discuss this further.

Junk Food: The Dark Side of the Food Industry | DW Documentary

Jun 30, 2023 | 40 % of the global population is overweight or obese. Highly processed industrial foodstuffs are largely to blame. But food companies continue to focus on products that are addictive.

Sugar is one of the strongest "drugs” and can get consumers really hooked. Food giants know this only too well. That’s why they use sugar, fats and flavor enhancers to encourage people to buy their products and boost their profits. The result: more and more people around the world are overweight or obese. Illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease are becoming more prevalent. What can be done to change or even put a stop to the food industry’s strategies?

Global Junk Food: How the Fast-Food Industry Is Making Poor Countries Fat | ENDEVR Documentary

In Europe, food manufacturers have signed up to ‘responsibility pledges’, promising no added sugar, preservatives, artificial colours or flavours and not to target children. So why are they using tactics banned in the West in the developing world? There, they have created ultra-low-cost products with higher levels of salt, sugar and saturated fats. Filmed in Brazil, India and France, we investigate the new tactics of brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza.

Peter Jennings Reporting: How to Get Fat without Really Trying

First aired December 8, 2003 on ABC

Obesity is fast on its way to becoming the nation’s largest and most costly public health problem. While much of the public debate about obesity has focused on personal responsibility, Peter Jennings Reporting – How To Get Fat Without Really Trying reveals how federal government agricultural policies and food industry practices are contributing to America’s growing obesity epidemic.

In this program, Jennings demonstrates for the first time how more federal agricultural subsidies are going to foods Americans should be eating less, while few subsidies go to foods we should be eating more. Jennings investigates the type of food products the packaged food industry introduces each year and finds that the vast majority of new food products are those that dietary guidelines say Americans should be eating least.

Jennings also takes a bold look at the marketing of unhealthy food to children. Studies reveal that young children are not capable of understanding the intent of advertising and Jennings questions the ethics of such marketing, raising the question: should children be protected from junk food marketing – despite the economic impact that might have on food companies and broadcast networks?

Within days of this documentary airing, schools across the country requested copies for use in their classrooms. Nutrition scholars are re-directing their research to examine the relationship of agricultural subsidies to the obesity epidemic. The Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission has indicated that food marketing is an area in which the agency will become more involved. And California legislators scheduled a screening of the program as they were considering restrictions on marketing of junk food to children.

Fault Lines: Fast Food, Fat Profits: Obesity in America (2010)

Obesity in America has reached a crisis point. Two out of every three Americans are overweight, one out of every three is obese. One in three are expected to have diabetes by 2050.

Minorities have been even more profoundly affected. African-Americans have a 50 per cent higher prevalence of obesity and Hispanics 25 per cent higher when compared with whites.

How did the situation get so out of hand?

Leading Doctors Call for Urgent Crackdown on Junk Food
THE OBSERVER: Presidents of two royal colleges of medicine urge government to restrict advertising and sponsorship by makers of unhealthy foods and introduce diet health warnings

McDonald's currently sponsors the youth coaching scheme run by the Football Association. Photograph: The Observer
Leading doctors today weigh in on the debate over the government's role in promoting public health by demanding that ministers impose "fat taxes" on unhealthy food and introduce cigarette-style warnings to children about the dangers of a poor diet.

The demands follow comments last week by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, who insisted the government could not force people to make healthy choices and promised to free businesses from public health regulations.

But senior medical figures want to stop fast-food outlets opening near schools, restrict advertising of products high in fat, salt or sugar, and limit sponsorship of sports events by fast-food producers such as McDonald's.

They argue that government action is necessary to curb Britain's addiction to unhealthy food and help halt spiralling rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said that the consumption of unhealthy food should be seen to be just as damaging as smoking or binge drinking. >>> Denis Campbell, Health correspondent | Sunday, July 11, 2010

53% of Saudi Men Lazy: Study
SAUDI GAZETTE: JEDDAH – Saudi males are lazy, eat too much junk food and spend excessive time in front of the television, all which means they are only likely to get fatter, an Arab health and nutrition expert has said.

Dr. Abdullah Musaiqir, head of the Arab Center for Nutrition, has warned of increasing obesity in the Gulf states and particularly Saudi Arabia, and cites a Saudi study showing that over 53 percent of Saudi males live a “lethargic lifestyle”, with only 20 percent described as leading a healthy lifestyle and engaging in activities that help keep them in good physical shape. Twenty seven percent were described by the study as having a “partially active” lifestyle.

Parents, Dr. Musaiqir said, are advised to cut down on television watching time for both themselves and their children, and to remove television sets from dining rooms and bedrooms. According to Musaiqir, watching television encourages further unhealthy eating practices as the activity is popularly accompanied by the consumption of snack foods.

Musaiqir said the first steps toward promoting a healthier lifestyle should come with awareness programs conducted throughout the Gulf with media involvement, and that school and university curricula should be improved to address issues of nutrition and public health.

Schools, Muqaisir said, should make greater efforts to support and encourage sporting activities both inside and outside the confines of their campuses. [Source: Saudi Gazette] Okaz/SG | Wednesday, August 19, 2009