Should the government have tighter regulations on the fast food industry?

[Aldawolf]

In the aggressive marketing campaigns and competition with one another, fast food companies have been making greater portion sized meals for cheaper. One example is a meal worth 2000 calories from Dairy Queen for a total of 5 dollars (!). For reference, 2000 is the daily recommended amount of calories for your average adult trying to maintain a healthy weight. Now if we look at the numbers in the United States, over 60% of the population is overweight, 30% of the population is obese. Do you think it's time for the Government to step in and start regulating and mandating portion sizes and stop fast food marketing, as well as require nutritional information easily available on the menu? Are you for all of these things? Only some of them? Against it all?

Here's a chart just to see how bad it has gotten in the past years.

[t] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Obesity_state_level_estimates_1985-2010.gif[/t]

[bitches]

The notion that eating cheap means eating fast food is a myth of the lazy. It's your own fault going to fast food, and you know that it's bad for you. I agree that calorie labelling needs more prominence, but it's ridiculous to suggest that the companies should be barred from even offering high-calorie foods. So, no.

[editline]15th October 2015[/editline]

Usually when this topic comes up IRL, those pushing for regulation are those looking for someone to blame for their own poor choices.

[Aldawolf]

[QUOTE=bitches;48909791]The notion that eating cheap means eating fast food is a myth of the lazy. It's your own fault going to fast food, and you know that it's bad for you. I agree that calorie labelling needs more prominence, but it's ridiculous to suggest that the companies should be barred from even offering high-calorie foods. So, no.

[editline]15th October 2015[/editline]

Usually when this topic comes up IRL, those pushing for regulation are those looking for someone to blame for their own poor choices.[/QUOTE]

Oh I totally agree with you on everything. I'm personally more for a push on education of these things to people because if you ask anyone on the street how many calories of that McDonald's meal they're eating they're likely just to shrug. It does sort of bother me though that, in my example, Dairy Queen pushes a 2000 calorie meal as an "Average lunch". Unless people make that the only thing they eat for the day (which is devoid of any nutritional value) then I think it's a problem. I just think that the obesity problem is more of a multitude of problems together than just lazy people making bad choices. Yes, that a contributing factor, but so is the marketing of fast food and lack of general education on what you're putting into your body. With as many stupid fad diets going around people may very well be confused on what is the key to losing weight and shoot themselves in the foot over it. This competition between fast food places to make portion sizes bigger for cheaper is something I also find troubling. Maybe not outright ban high-calorie food, but steps in that direction like New York's regulation on soda sizes is something I don't mind.

I also do think losing weight is easier than people let on though. I still lost most of the weight I gained on medications that make it harder than it should be to. I used to not care about what I ate and was still a healthy weight, then when those medications came along and I gained a lot of weight I started to pay more attention. As you get older it gets harder, but if you're a young person then it shouldn't be difficult at all, it just takes time.

[bitches]

Falsely advertising meals as average is a valid issue.

Legislating soda output is arbitrarily restrictive