Should retailers do more to promote healthier food?

“Appease those who value freedom of choice”? We live in a democracy where we can take responsibility for our actions, not a dictatorship where we are told what to do. I’d like to keep it that way and educate people how to look after their health.

The NHS say “The term ‘obese’ describes a person who’s very overweight, with a lot of body fat.
It’s a common problem in the UK that’s estimated to affect around one in every four adults and around one in every five children aged 10 to 11.”

It might be that instead of spending vast sums on the Olympics and professional sports people we could use the money to encourage younger people in particular to get off their bottoms, put down their electronic gadgets, and do some exercise. We need facilities to do that, and they need to be affordable, not high priced commercial gyms and tennis clubs. Oh, and schools need to provide real exercise that makes you sweat and breath harder as part of the curriculum.

Education has its limitations. Without cooperation, little will be learned. I expect that most people who are obese are very well aware that eating too much and exercising too little are the reasons.

Peer pressure has a lot to do with the way that many young people go out to get drunk. Eating out with others has become a more regular activity than it used to be and portion sizes have increased.

Many cannot easily quit smoking even though they know it is harmful and others drink more than is good for them. If marketing and selling of food was controlled to cut down on obesity, I would support it.

I agree about the encouraging people to take exercise.

Chicken and egg is an interesting argument (forget campylobacter for once). When I was in design and manufacture we felt than unless a product was produced the customer would not know it was possible, so would not demand it. Would we demand LED light sources for our homes with no notion they were possible?

I think the product comes first, and if successful it is followed by demand. So the manufacturers are the initial source of any problem of unhealthy food, the retailers next for stocking it, but unless customers choose to buy it, it will fail.

We have the final say – if we choose to. Consumers’ problems seem to be not buying such products, but consuming them to excess, whether crisps, fatty beefburgers or alcohol. Some think we should be regulated and prevented from exercising our free choice, as if we are some part of an organisation that a few who “know better” wish to dominate with their own ideas.

My preference is that people should be given information to help them make their own choices. We are all individuals with the right to live our lives the way we choose, but to accept the consequences of our own actions.

Considerable information has been provided and most food comes with information on nutrition. I believe that McDonalds and other well known fast food outlets provide nutritional information too. But the number of overweight and obese people is growing and it is high time that we controlled the worst excesses of the food industry.

Free choice seems intuitively right but the statistics show that this is not working. When the house is on fire it is better to take prompt action than tell people they need a smoke detector in each room and to test it regularly.

Telling an alcoholic to cut down on their drinking does not always work. Some manage to get their weight under control but many don’t.

I think Beryl is right about the effect of stress. Ignoring it is not a good idea, nor is turning to alcohol or excessive or unhealthy food consumption.

Walkers have now switched to using sunseed oil in their crisps, a typical 35g bag contains two and a half teaspoons of oil and nearly a fifth of children eat two packs a day according to The British Heart Foundation. A pack a day habit is equal to a child drinking 5 litres of oil every year.

Malcolm I am a great believer in freedom of choice but food choice has it roots in what a parent feeds a child on from a very early stage in its life. As Wavechange makes the point old habits die hard and can too easily become addictions which are extremely hard to break once established.

The damage to ones health from over indulging whether it be through eating or drinking to excess or the making the wrong choices generates a huge strain on the NHS, and in that respect I would suggest maybe we all have a duty of care to make sensible choices that first benefit not only ones own health but also that of your nearest and dearest and ultimately society as a whole.

“If all else fails read the instructions” has relevance. All new houses are fitting with interlinked smoke alarms but most people believe their house will not catch fire – and it doesn’t. Certainly substance abuse, whether alcohol, smoking, drugs, food, sugar, is something that becomes wired into your brain and is difficult to reverse. However most people do not abuse things in this way, and the penalty for banning some things is denying the rights of the vast majority who do not abuse them. I like a small glass of wine, cream cakes, occasional beefburger, chips, bag of crisps, moderate consumption of soft drinks, and would be very miffed if someone tried to prevent me from buying them “for my own good”.

Beryl, I totally agree that we have a duty of care, particularly to our offspring. I believe the majority do adopt a sensible approach to this without being over-prescriptive, especially to their children. My problem comes with how you deal, if you have the right, with those who are not so responsible as if we have some superior right to control their habits.

We could ban alcohol – for some it is disastrous; smoking – for many it damages their health; dangerous activites – apart from self-harm it imposes a strain on A&E. I just do not know how you intrude into other people’s lives when so many activities, done irresponsibly in our eyes, can cause them harm.

The whole point Malcolm being it is your choice to ignore the now well established and proven advice as to what you consider is acceptable to your own lifestyle, as long as you are aware of the risks involved through over indulging in the wrong kind of food and that the damage to ones health can occasionally be irreversible.

Yes, Beryl, I agree. Given the correct information, it is your choice how to behave. Sometimes though, the “right information” is not always “right” as we have seen with advice on foods.

Malcolm, maybe the right information about the right kind of food is the preferred option to the wrong information about the wrong kind of food. Your GP would know the answer to that little poser, but I hesitate to delve any further into what is essentially a private matter.