(no subject)

[unixronin]

Poor nutrition and lack of exercise mean that for the first time in over a century, life expectancy of the new generation in Western nations has decreased.  Meanwhile, the US is fighting (and some say sabotaging) the WHO's strategy against obesity.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

A.) Fuck the WHO, and all the other UN sponsored organizations.

B.) First paragraph, and already they have missed the problem.

Some scientists accuse President Bush's administration of planning to water down proposed junk food regulations, in order to protect big business.

We don't need fucking junk food regulations. We need to stop subsidizing corn production, thereby driving up corn volume, and high fructose corn syrup volume, and maybe it would stop getting added to everything. There's a fairly reliable correlation between "when the US started putting HFCS in everything" and "when the US started getting statistically obese".

So we save the money of boosting corn production, and we leave the government's hand out of an industry. I know, rank heresy.

Blah.

-Ogre

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

The WHO says that weight-related deaths globally are likely to double over the next 20 years.

And in the UK, the Food Standards Agency has warned that poor nutrition and lack of exercise means young people today on average are likely to live shorter lives than their parents - the first such reduction in more than a century.

And "So Fucking What?" for all that? The only reason the governments care anyway is because it will show the bankruptcy of various pyramid schemes they have running to support old people that much earlier. Some people will figure it out on their own, and not die of artificial malnutrition, and others will balloon and die. As a species, we'll adapt or burn.

I'm not actually being Grr at you, A., I'm just in a cranky mood.

And I'm tired of fucking busybody government or quasigovernment agencies telling me how to live my life, and stealing my money to use specifically to fuck me with.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Preach it, brother.

I'm equally pissed about the plutocracy that's really running this country in the blind pursuit of money and influence at any cost to anyone else.

"Such-and-such agency is trying to do X to reduce the number of people who die of Y, but that might cut into our profits. Let's see what we can do to monkeywrench the fuckers."

And in this context, it's probably topical to mention that the Bush administration is currently proposing a new presidential council to give U.S. companies a greater voice in government decisions (http://www.comcast.net/News/DOMESTIC//XML/1152_Cabinet/58cf5fd8-e6da-4cae-ac7a-9d0f14ed2ba0.html). Exactly what kind of decisions they'll have a greater voice in is unclear from the rather rambling article, but I suspect it'll end up being one more step towards "Government of the people, by the mega-corporations, for the mega-rich."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps, on further consideration, s/running this country/running this country into the ground/ ....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hey, works for me.

[Though, #include "devils_advocate.h", how do you know the proposed regulations don't curb the use of HFCS? Dry up the market, and the supply will go away.]

[Side note: When we first came to the US I was boggled to find out that regular supermarket TABLE SALT fer crissakes had sugar added to it.]

As for the UN, yeah, I have pretty damn little use for them. They're a circle of chattering old women who don't have the gumption to take decisive action on anything, but want to be a world government anyway. But in this case the WHO, misguided as it may often be, has recognized a problem and is at least trying to do something about it.

Personally, I think it's largely futile. The only ways you're going to stop some people from becoming pathologically obese are strict food rationing or surgery. (Goose's grandma chose the latter route because she lacks the willpower to maintain anything resembling a reasonable diet.)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

And then, of course, there are other people who are going to be very large no matter how little they eat, it's simply the way they are.

Having the legislation ban HFCS is even worse, in some regards, since it then becomes the left hand punishing the right. Bah. Better to just remove the tendrils of government from everything it's not supposed to be in. Not that I expect that to ever happen.

*sigh*

-Ogre