Speaker: Are there opportunities within the Government’s childhood obesity plan?
243 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
The only sticking point is between the saying and the doing. And there's the rub.
Verily
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
If we could stop with the judgements, and actually think properly about what’s causing the problems, we may get somewhere,
Amen. And for the third time, I’ll link to Dr Toomath’s article on this;
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/5639913/Fighting-a-losing-battle-against-obesity
Where she puts her thesis on what the cause of the problem is:
DR TOOMATH’S thesis is simple, but great fodder for libertarians and the talkback radio crowd. It goes like this: it is not their fault. Obese people did not choose to be that way. No-one would. Instead, they are at the whim first of their genes – especially those that control appetite – and then of an environment that is saturated in energy-dense, crappy food options. The combination means a population that is getting fatter with all the health problems that causes – exploding rates of diabetes chief among them.
And she points out that the “personal responsibility” and “more education” argument is a crock:
Dr Toomath is honest about this. She is not a big believer in free will at the best of times, she says, and especially not in this case. “The idea that we can describe the problem in terms of personal responsibility, you know, that it can be called a choice, a lifestyle choice, it’s crap. There’s no choice … To think that people choose to be obese, and if you educated them better, or if they were more steely and determined, self-denying, that they could not be the shape they are, is just rubbish.”
So, what’s left? Tax and environment.
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Sacha, in reply to
It's not the only thing I feel that way about - for consistency I also feel the same way about tobacco.
Second most addictive substance on the planet. Not the same dynamic at all.
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Danielle, in reply to
Isn’t Katharine just sharing her opinions and experience
Katharine is doling out parenting and nutritional advice like it's going out of style. I don't remember seeing anyone ask for it.
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Sacha, in reply to
I've always heard Dr Toomath talk about our "obesogenic environment". That's not something you blame individual people for being in.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Will removing GST on fresh fruit and vegetables achieve its stated aim? (2010) Concl
I agree with that paper. Removing any tax creates a gap in funding somewhere else. But adding a tax on a harmful product with no nutritional value whatsoever, generates revenue - new revenue that can be put to good use elsewhere.
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Speaking of sardines.
Some of us think life’s a bit like that, don’t we? But it isn’t. Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We all of us are looking for the key. And I wonder how many of you here tonight have wasted years of your lives looking behind the kitchen dressers of this life for that key. I know I have. Others think they’ve found the key, don’t they? They roll back the lid of the sardine tin of life. They reveal the sardines—the riches of life—therein, and they get them out, and they enjoy them. But, you know, there’s always a little bit in the corner you can’t get out. I wonder is there a little bit in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine.
From Beyond the Fringe
Apologies if I’m not taking this seriously enough. It’s Friday, and I’ve had a helluva week.
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Sacha, in reply to
zing
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HORansome, in reply to
I'm not sure why we're meant to be subsidising milk producers; even with my vegan hat off, the supposed health benefits of milk area widely disputed by nutritional experts, whilst we live in a region of the world where lactose intolerance is a serious problem for large sectors of our multicultural society. That, and the fact dairy production is environmental destructive and mostly takes place on land confiscated from Māori seems to rule out the idea we should be subsidising dairy...
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Sacha, in reply to
I might be missing something
Unfortunately I must agree.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
That’s not something you blame individual people for being in.
And I don't - that why we as a society have to change that aspect of our society - the environment. Defending the right to have a vending machine at the school and all-you-can-eat KFC under a banner of personal choice/responsibility isn't helping at all.
Neither is making fun of sardines in a public forum (lol).
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Sacha, in reply to
I’ve had a helluva week
sorry
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Danielle, in reply to
Oh, and you have to eat your toast with a knife and fork too. That way you won’t end up on dialysis.
What about the green jelly? Isn't that basically just sugar? WHAT IF I GET ON THE DIALYSIS??
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Sacha, in reply to
Defending the right to have a vending machine at the school and all-you-can-eat KFC under a banner of personal choice/responsibility isn't helping at all.
And I have seen nobody doing that here. You may be arguing furiously with natural allies?
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I'm just doing the maths here. On the links Katherine gave, a serving of chips (which cost me exactly $1 about 40 minutes ago) contains nearly a thousand calories, whereas the sardine can contains nearly 200. So we get 5 times as much calories in the chips, for 20c less. You could probably make up the difference with 9 slices of bread, but I don't think a standard loaf has 36 slices in it. You'd need 2. Presumably the toast has some kind of spread, perhaps butter, margarine, or maybe blood squeezed from a local stone. Better factor in how much of that you spread on 36 slices of bread - then we've got a valid comparison in cost to the chips pile. There's about 20 minutes of preparation in all of that too - even with my 4-at-a-time toaster. Most of my own time would be spent buttering the toast, and stretching the 10grams of fish across each slice.
I'm being a bit silly, of course. I'm sure the idea wasn't to eat the equivalent in nutrition to the fish and chips, but to eat less. Which is why it's also less fattening. It's probably more like 2 slices of bread each, for a grand total of maybe 500 calories apiece, at a cost of around $2 each if you really take all the monetary costs into account and don't count your own efforts as a cost.
Of course I didn't buy only the chips - $1 chips each is far too much. That was $1 chips in total. I also got chicken nuggets, deep fried wings and wontons. A fair hit of protein there, and admittedly a lot of fat. Total cost: $8.80. There would be upwards of 2000 calories in that pile. It could have fed all of us. But it didn't because I personally had some other stuff (I don't like deep fried food myself much, if I buy from a takeaway shop it's usually a burger). There was leftovers, which we ditched into the bokashi. I actually had garlic prawns that I made myself from fresh chili and garlic out of the garden, and about $2 worth of frozen prawns.
The little one didn't really eat much - he never does. The chicken nuggets, a couple of chips, 3 little chicken wings. The older child ate a massive amount. One could think I'm a terrible dad for being bloody glad he ate so much, but considering that he's spent most of his life underweight, and only in the last year has he finally begun to converge from below on normal in size and strength, I think I can be forgiven for trying to fatten him up and would feel quite bitter to be taxed on it. His strength gains have been tremendous this year.
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James Butler, in reply to
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ask anyone hooked up to a dialysis machine three times a week
Well on dialysis you pretty much can't eat fresh fruit or veg at all... wait, how did we get on to this?
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
That's lovely. The author obviously loves sardines. I can't imagine anything so poetic written about hot chips served in greasy paper.
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Danielle, in reply to
I think it was my fault. It usually is.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Then let's stick to that, shall we?
Sardines are foul.
I eat quite a lot of McDonalds. -
Sacha, in reply to
on dialysis you pretty much can't eat fresh fruit or veg
really - how come?
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Sacha, in reply to
a serving of chips (which cost me exactly $1 about 40 minutes ago)
heck - where? #cheap
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Sardines are foul.
Well yes, though unlike chocolate fish there's not the moral qualm about biting heads off, because someone's already done it for you.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Yeah, I agree, subsidising dairy was a bad idea (I completely oppose the government's subsidising of irrigation initiatives, for example) - but folks were calling for a retail price decease on a 'good' food - so it was the first of two drinks (as a substitute for fizzy drink) that came to mind.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
What about the green jelly? Isn’t that basically just sugar? WHAT IF I GET ON THE DIALYSIS??
Eat everything in moderation and you won't.
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The one thing discussions about food and nutrition always seem to ignore is the utility people get from food beyond its nutrients and calories. It's hard to measure, but it's real, which is why I'd pay $5 for a scoop of chips and -$20 for sardines. A tax has to be high to overcome that utility, and those affected by the tax are going to lose that utility. You're making people's lives less pleasant in the hope that there's long term gain - that's a big call, and you can't handwave it away by saying nobody should like fizzy anyway.
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