Junk food advertising could be banned across the entire Transport for London
67 replies, posted
Uh, how is it foolish to say that parents are the last link of the causal chain ie they're ultimately the persons who decide whether they will indulge in their children's desire for McDo. That statement doesn't say anything about the weight of their responsibility so I'm not sure why you're latching onto it.
Yeah I'm not going to exclusively base my view of the issue on the statement of an lobbying group and think thank which defends the interests of advertisers. I'm going to need a bit more than that to be convinced that what basically every B2C company in the world pour billions into, sometimes a huge chunk of their revenue, just has "little impact".
If you want to conclude from that that banning ads won't do anything go ahead, but don't be surprised that other people aren't swayed by so little.
Oh, I misread Causal for casual in the first part. Sorry about that.
Ok so you are skeptical of businesses in order to conveniently mistrust that statement. But to use your own words with a slight modification:
If you want to conclude from that, that banning ads will do anything go ahead, but don't be surprised that other people aren't swayed by so little.
I say that that banning tube and bus ads won't do anything because parents will bring their kids to fast-food due to how easy, available and viable it is as a food source. I don't care how nutritional it is but the problem isn't what they eat but how much they eat.
So I fail to see exactly what your point is when you dismiss a statement from the advertisement agency with the excuse that they are "a lobbying group and think thank which defends the interests of advertisers." and then say "don't be surprised that other people aren't swayed by so little." I mean that's great and all but how exactly does that explain why banning advertisements on the tube and bus system would be helpful to the obesity problem? Even in your first reply you state that advertisers are somewhat responsible but you don't really answer the effectiveness of banning tube ads versus educating parents/children.
For sake of argument lets say that advertisers are indeed more responsible than I think they are. So in theory if we were to totally ban any ads that involve "Junk food" we should see a noticeable decrease in obesity over the years.
I think that above statement would be false if done experimentally because taking away ads does nothing to change the availability of 'Junk food'. So again, would you please tell me how banning tube ads helps the obesity problem?
I'm not sure why you find it hard to conceive how it would serve to reduce it.
If ads work, and I'm inclined to believe they do when companies invest so much of their revenue in them, then ads for fast food and junk food increase the consumption of said food, which greatly favors obesity due to the high sugar, salt and saturated fats concentration in those foods, or just their overall extreme calories density. Thus fast food ads are increasing unhealthy food consumption which favors obesity. Thus cutting down on them would, conversely, help the obesity problem.
I don't get what you find so unconvincing about this.
You most likely do, beings that the only "junk food" I eat nowadays is like maybe one kit-kat (if I feel like it), or I'll eat "fast food" if I'm traveling away from home, but I always try to moderate and choose the option that will fit better into my macro goals.
And I've never been against "universal healthcare." In actuality, I love the idea. I just want it to be implemented in a fashion where the government just shuts up and pays for it. Not in a fashion where it can be used as a bargaining chip ala "government shutdown", or used as a reason for the government to impose ANY sort of regulation or restriction on anything, or treat anyone, regardless of lifestyle of vice any differently than the rest of us. In other words, don't push for universal healthcare just to yell at people "But you're costing ME more!" to get them to justify shit. Because if that's the case, I don't want it.
So everyone could smoke and you’d see that as reasonable? I’m a smoker, and if programs exist to say “hey that’s bad” that’s okay with me because it should be a goal. Foods no different.
That's a great idea and all, but money doesn't grow on trees and contrary to popular belief, the government just can't "print more money" either. If the government were to just "shut up and pay", then there is going to be a limit in how much it can afford.
However, the more healthy people there are - say, due to eating a better diet - then the more money can be spent by the government on actual sick people.
Think of it in this simplification: "Sorry Frank, the government can't afford to pay for your cancer treatments forever because we need some money to pay for Dave's diabetes, heart disease, and obesity treatments"
If only Dave had eaten more salads, Frank would get his chemo.
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