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Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store do
by dakna 7y ago
Lack of knowledge is one prt, but also convenience plays a big role. Cooking is considered a household chore, and life should be easy. The neighborhood store doesn't offer raw ingredients to cook, and you need weekly planning to stock up on this when you drive to the big store outside of town. You get everything processed and sugared up right around the corner every day.
- wang_li 7y ago> convenience plays a big role No government regulation should be imposed on the country as a whole so that some people can find things more convenient. If people can't be bothered to put some effort into being healthy, I'm not sure why I should care if the "gap between rich and poor American's health is widening" or not. Edited to remove judgement.
- standardUser 7y agoYou may have missed other parts of this conversation where people point out how corporate interests have had great success in getting the government to promote and subsidize unhealthy foods (see: corn subsidies, the food pyramid, subpar food labelling, cheap junk food in public schools). The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population. But if nothing else, the government (at all levels) should be sure not to promote and fund profoundly unhealthy habits over healthy ones.
- wang_li 7y ago> The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population. Lifestyle choices are not a function of government even if those choices result in shortened lifespans, poor health, poverty, or other "negative" outcomes. These are not externalities and are no business of society. You might say that sick people cost the society money. But the answer to that is not that people are sick, it's that someone has decided to spend money on those people. Of course this approach doesn't put more power into the hands of control freaks, so it'll constantly be fought. > But if nothing else, the government (at all levels) should be sure not to promote and fund profoundly unhealthy habits over healthy ones. Agreed. Government should not feed false information to the people.
- leetcrew 7y ago> The government (at various levels) should certainly have a role in ensuring a healthy population. this is an opinion. to the extent that the government publishes nutrition recommendations or information, it should of course be accurate, but I really don't want to see what the government actively "ensuring" my health looks like.
- standardUser 7y agoNot allowing toxic chemicals in your food, for example, and establishing monitoring and penalties to accomplish that. Not allowing companies to lie about what's in the food they sell you, as another example.
- kevinlou 7y agoYeah this is the wrong take, buddy.
- dang 7y agoMaybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
- dakna 7y agoI'm not aware of any government regulation to enforce convenience. If given a choice, most people will choose instant convenience if they are not aware of the long term effects of this decision. Hence the lack of education part.
- dang 7y agoWhen disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html