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Id sugar is taxed it should go directly to subsidies on healthy foods and nowhere else. When you I go shopping I often get commented on how 'good' my shop is, but it costs a fuck load more than going around and buying all the value shit junk food and highly processed crap
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Mandates. they're blockng up the health system. More mandates required.
But seriously, dont agree with taxes as it punishes healthy people who want to eat something.
potentially some kind of incentive system for weightloss. with a decent education system on nutrition.
people always talk about school teaching "life" cooking and nutrition should be a big part of year 6 to 10 where you basically learn nothing anyway
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@muddyriver said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
teaching "life" cooking and nutrition
well back in my day (mid 80s, haha old fluffybunny alert) in Form 1 & 2 (years 7 & 8 ) we used to have cooking classes, nutrition wasnt taught, but by the same token, was a damn sight less rubbish food available then too, alot more foods were less processed which helped I guess.
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@kirwan said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
The assumption here is taxing something changes behaviour.
People still smoke, even though it’s highly taxed. Much of reduction that was seen was educating people about the links to cancer.
Less of that was done with alcohol and there tones of drinking going on.
The key is education and reducing taxes on healthy food.
What they spend any tax on is a big thing. I agree it has to be spent on education
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People know, they don’t care.
Someone/something will take care of them if it goes tits up (or in the case of diabetes and obesity, tits down).
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Fuck your tax. Won't change behaviour, government will spend it on middle class welfare for re-election
Fresh food is ludicrously expensive in NZ. Chips are cheap as shit.
People are time poor. Money poor. Skill and knowledge poor.
While I agree something should be done I'm yet to see a solution that addresses the actual problem not the symptoms.
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You’re right. The sugar tax in the UK is little more than virtue signalling that has the bonus of raising a few quid. It has had fuck all effect.
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I have an interesting second hand experience on this one.
My dad has always had a beer belly. A proper one that really sticks out. He's around 6ft ish and peaked at around 125kg. The doctor had him at pre-diabetic from about this mid 40's, his father had it and he'd always just accepted it as an inevitability. Anyway, in his mid 50's, my Mum put her foot down - you are too big, you need to do something about it. So he turned a lot of things around, with he main thing being a large reduction in carbohydrates, and elimination of small things. He also had to reduce his beer intake a lot. Anyway, this worked well and he spent the next 12-13 years in reasonable shape, and remained pre diabetic. When he was about 70he moved into having diabetes. Age caught up. Or so we thought.
So he starts on the tablets, but he asks the dr what else he could do. The doc took him off carbs almost completely. He now has one slice of toast in the morning and that's it. He'd basically given up a beer over the previous few years and has never really had sweet tooth. Over the course of the next 18 months he went back to pre-diabetic and then went straight through that too, so now, at 73 years old, all his blood glucoses etc are completely normal. Not a sign of it, and he takes no medication.
It's been a real eye opener for all of us. So with the marathon over, and my motivation to train fallen off a cliff, I've decided at 44 to ditch the carbs as well. So we shall see how it goes. My main takes on the whole thing are that
- Carbohydrate intake is much more important than is made out
- It's almost never too late to turn it around
FWIW with sugar and fat taxes etc, I completely support them, but only on the proviso, it's recycled straight back into fresh foods. Fresh fruit/veg, leans meats, non-processed snacks should be an absolute bargain at the supermarket. Processed crap (confectionary, crisps (chips)) should be expensive, making them the treat that they should be.
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@majorrage said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
- Carbohydrate intake is much more important than is made out
I know people who have basically cut out all carbs, especially complex carbs (bread, pasta), and the weight plummets. Fat is important but carbs seems to be much more so when it comes to weight loss. The hardest part is keeping them out, who doesn't want to sit back with a satisfying plate of pasta, baked goods or a pile of roast potatoes, especially in the depths of Winter?
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Cut down your portion sizes you fat fucks.
All groups are important. But balance is necessary.
Train lots? If you don't eat carbs you'll collapse in a heap. Do nothing? Maybe take on a lot less.
But it's really fucking hard to get that message across when carbs are cheap and fill you up.
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@chimoaus said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
The system is clearly broken, most people understand their health is tied to their diet yet things are just getting worse and worse. Our brains are hardwired to seek fat and sugar and once addicted to food it is very hard to stop the impulse and cravings.
@chimoaus it’s not clear what “system” you are talking about?
The health system? the tax system? the “food” industry system? Advertising system? or is it that society is broken?
Or could it be that people just make choices based on budget, circumstance eg convenience, time, lifestyle, culture) and desire/motivation.
In what I would call a fairly affluent society like Australia (generally speaking), where food outlets are only a short trip away, 24 hr supermarkets/stores and a seemingly endless supply of food at our fingertips - it no doubt requires a more informed choice if your desire is to “reduce fat” “stay lean and healthy”.
I guess it comes down to each individual if they see the above as a “problem” and that would probably shape one’s view if more government regulation / tax is needed.
Given what has played out in Australia with COVID, the less government intervention in the name of “health”, the better! I’m not saying there isn’t sensible regulation that currently exists, but I would be weary because let’s not forget that there is also a massive billion dollar industry “trying to keep us healthy” too….
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Should be a set text in school
'Eat real food; not too much; mostly vegetables'
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@majorrage said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
FWIW with sugar and fat taxes etc, I completely support them, but only on the proviso, it's recycled straight back into fresh foods. Fresh fruit/veg, leans meats, non-processed snacks should be an absolute bargain at the supermarket. Processed crap (confectionary, crisps (chips)) should be expensive, making them the treat that they should be.
But that’s not the way economics works. The supermarkets know how much people will pay for fresh fruit and veges, it’s the amount they charge now more or less. That’s the point where supply no demand are in equilibrium. Economically, the only reasonable thing for the supermarkets to do is to continue to charge that equilibrium price. If you introduce a subsidy it should make no difference to the price, because it doesn’t change either the demand or the supply. It will therefore become a windfall profit (in fact, economic rent) for the supermarkets.
The fact that fruit and veges are variable in supply gives the supermarkets even more cover to do this. They can always justify maintaining their prices because of seasonality.
If you tax sugar to modify behaviour, so be it. Governments have been doing that forever. And it will reduce the demand for sugary products. But the subsidy side of the equation probably won’t increase uptake of fruit and veg. In fact there is a fair chance that poorer people will continue to buy sugary drinks and therefore have less to spend on veges.
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main problem with food costs in NZ is the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
Aldi is supposedly coming to NZ so hopefully they will put pressure on the existing ones to reduce margins, which are apparently some of the highest margins for supermarkets in the world.
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@taniwharugby said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
main problem with food costs in NZ is the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
Aldi is supposedly coming to NZ so hopefully they will put pressure on the existing ones to reduce margins, which are apparently some of the highest margins for supermarkets in the world.
Don’t bet on it mate. We have more supermarkets than you could poke a stick at and we still gave the s as me problems.
An over abundance of cheap shit.
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@act-crusader The system that allows billion-dollar companies to engineer products that get us addicted and ultimately lead to premature death and a range of health problems.
At its core food companies are creating products that sell and make them profit. Products that set off our reward systems are those loaded with sugar and fat, these products sell and make them the most profit. The nutritional benefit of these products is marginal at best.
We as a society are the ones that pay the costs of these products they are selling. Our taxes pay for the healthcare to care for sick people, disability for those too obese to work etc. We all experience the trauma from premature death and the mental health issues that often stem from being overweight.
Should these companies take more responsibility for the long term impacts of their products? should they have to pay some sort of tax to help pay for the damage their products do? If they didn't make these products people wouldn't get as sick.
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@jc Thanks for that, I guess from my point of view I buy a lot more blueberries when they are in season and cheap, if apples are cheap, I buy more. If avocados or bananas are priced high, I think twice before buying. I assume many lower income families must exclude fruit and veg based on price?
What is interesting is the pricing strategies of processed food, you can guarantee every trip to the supermarket some processed food will be half price or heavily discounted which clearly stimulates sales. At the end of each aisle there is some huge discount of coke etc. When was the last time you saw fruit and veg on the end of an aisle on sale?
How do we increase the demand for fruit and veg and decrease the demand for processed food?
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@catogrande said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
You’re right. The sugar tax in the UK is little more than virtue signalling that has the bonus of raising a few quid. It has had fuck all effect.
A google search indicates a 10% reduction in the consumption of sugar from drinks? Is that not an indication it is working?
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Taxation on high sugar food and drink would fit with excise taxes in general - there is an externality in the form of health costs caused by high intakes of sugar, so a contribution to those costs would be standard economic theory. Any reduction in intake would be secondary to that but obviously very welcome if it happened. Other uses for the additional tax revenue could be things like more education (although there's a lot of that now and has been for decades), research etc.
That said, most of the taxation commentary I've seen in NZ on this subject has avoided the externality point and focused on how excise taxes won't reduce intake much so isn't worth the complexity it would add (excise taxes are often complex to implement). I can't tell if that's because there's no merit to the externality theory so they don't even cover it (or consider that the savings in NZ Super offset any costs to the health system which was an old Philip Morris argument about tobacco), or if it's just inconvenient to the argument of not taxing sugar so is omitted.
The other classic option in economics for dealing with externalities is to regulate e.g. ban high sugar drinks or restrict their sale or some other regulatory framework. Obviously that runs into freedom of choice, so usually requires a high threshold to bother (not least because it's not hard to just buy sugar and make drinks at home).
It's also possible to do both as NZ has done with alcohol, tobacco and gambling to name a few items (all are subject to tax and heavily regulated with age limits and other restrictions). Sugar probably isn't at that level, but I mention it for completeness.
Society has also changed a lot - far more food and entertainment options and a lot less available time outside of work. The old 8 hour day with a 15 minute commute, 40 hour/5 day week, one working parent, one car and public transport/bikes/walking much more common, and house and land prices actively managed to make quarter acre sections affordable to everyone, is a quaint relic of the past, but it also meant most families had a vege garden (and fruit trees/plants) that could actually feed the family to some extent and the time to tend it and prepare/cook meals at home, and preserve the excess so it wasn't just seasonal.
Now a couple is often both working full time with longer commutes and potentially longer hours (45 hours or 6 days for example), and a lot of cheap, quick, unhealthy but appetising options become very appealing.
There is also a lot more entertainment available, so tending a garden, if you even have a section big enough for it to actually feed a family, is not very appealing when you've spent 55 hours/week each between work and commuting. More people could grow simple stuff (we grow lettuces and tomatoes in season and various herbs year round, along with having strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mandarins, peaches and apples) but they still need land so it's not necessarily feasible for apartments or small townhouse sections, nor is it much of a supply really.
I'm not sure what the answer is because it's hard, and presumably people don't want to return to the past of a highly-regulated command economy. Exhorting people to eat better isn't working very well despite being a major focus in NZ at least (as soon as your blood sugar testing or weight is above the normal range, you get a truckload of stuff and suggestions of varying politeness to eat less, eat better, exercise more). Some people manage to pull it back with diet and exercise alone (my grandfather was very successful), some don't (my mother, not so much).
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@godder Thanks for that, all makes sense, and you touch on the complexity of the issue.
It is interesting how other things that are addictive and have poor externalities like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling usually have heavy taxes and rules in regard to advertising etc.
I really do feel for those addicted to food, every time they leave the house they are bombarded by hundreds if not thousands of triggers making it very difficult to use willpower as your defence.
Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?