Debate Now Should the Government Dictate What Is and Is Not Healthy?

[Foxfyre]

Corporations always do what is best for you, without any interference from the government. Turning Love Canal into a toxic waste site was actually in the public's best interest. it has created billions of dollars in jobs....

Strawman

Corporations utilize government to protect themselves from their poor decisions.

And they use government to create barriers to entry so that they can modulate prices higher than the market might otherwise dictate.

Try starting a restaraunt and see how much red tape you hit. It's not wonder that we mostly have the Chile's, Applebee,s and Burger Kings...etc. of the world.

Most people incorporate to shield their private assets from liability exposure. A sole proprietor who is sued can lose everything he has including his house, furniture, car, retirememt savings, etc. But liability exposure is limited to the assets held by the corporation and incorporation also allows for sharing of assets without putting one's personal property at risk. I think it has little or nothing to do with price modulation.

And actually the prices offered by Applebees, Chiles, Burger King etc. are somewhat lower than the average comparable non-chain restaurant because the chains benefit from standardized menus, advertising, decor, bulk buying, etc. and because of a much broader market, each restaurant can afford to operate on a smaller profit margin.

But bringing the thread topic back onto the track, it is interesting that most of the chains offer a 'healthy' choice or two among their menu offerings.

". . . market research published in 2011 found an 86-percent increase in the term "healthy" and a 33-percent increase in the term "low-fat" on fast-food menus. Yet the offerings are not, say, 86 percent healthier. . ." (This was from a Christopher Wanjek piece a year or two ago but I lost the link and don't want to have to hunt it up.)

But just because McDonalds happy meals don't meet the general standard for healthy eating, addition of apple slices and milk in lieu of cola, etc. has definitely improved them. And I don't have any problem with McDonalds advertising those apple slices and milk as 'healthy'. Nor should the government have a problem with that.

 

[Foxfyre]

Dear @G.T

The government doesnt have a track record of being wrong.

The sciences were wrong.

Stop conflating the two.

And it is very detrimental to ones health to think that a food is healthy when it's not, and so it meets your own standard for when the Government SHOULD interfere, which you described above.

Your onion example fails again also, because outliers dont (and shouldnt) effect a national standard. Meaning - people can be allergic to almonds and that doesnt disqualify them as being categorized as HEALTHY because the science says otherwise.

I know that is your argument. But I think I made an adequate argument in the OP for why government should not be making ultimatums and dictates based on scientific opinion that changes with the seasons. Compile the information of what the prevailing scientific opinion is--pro and con--yes. But let the people decide.

The people already do decide, because the products arent being banned.

The company is just not allowed to false advertize its product. Dont know why thats such a harsh dictatorship, to you.

To me, its quite obvious that people are either really really ignorant of what "healthy" means, or they're really really bad at self control.

And this ignorance or lack of self control doesnt only effect themselves. It is a cost driver in the healthcare industry and in the Government (medicare/aid) sector (taxe$).

The government has 3 vested interests here.
- regulating commerce (false advertising)
- healthcare costs
- tax burden

I find it really difficult to see any fault whatsoever with disallowing a nutrition bar from calling itself "healthy" when it contains a leading contributor to heart disease - which last i looked was one of if not THE top killers in America.

Its actually one of the most egregious attempts at false advertising Ive seen.

Dear G.T.
although I agree with the content of your pt, i agree with Foxfyre not to depend on federal govt as a magical fixall. It was never desisned to micromanage every case in every industry.

The root problem is large corporations having collective power as govt has but without checks on them. So we keep bypassing this imbalance and going thru govt to get a collective objection to a collective entity. We cant keep doing that. We should address corporate structures to restore due process and balance. Then that will apply to all cases.

In my opinion, if a corporation's products are inferior, and somebody else offers a better product at an attractive price, the free market will take care of it.

If a corporation is engaged in misconduct that hurts people and/or infringes on their rights or allows a harmful substance in their product that the people have no way to know it is there, there are already plenty of laws in place or legal recourse to address that.

In the case of the OP, we are dealing with an arbitrary mandate from the federal government forbidding a company from advertising its nutrition bar as 'healthy'. Any idiot can look at the ingredients in that nutrition bar and know that it is far more nutritious and 'healthy' than are many things the government does include in its guidelines for a 'healthy' diet.

But whether or not the nutrition bar meets your or my standards for 'healthy', I want the people to be able to decide. I see it as government overreach, excess authoritarianism, and wrong for government to dictate what a private corporation can or cannot advertise as healthy in this case.

I think you misrepresent what others seem to be thinking.

And I might be inclined to agree with them that many people are so stupid they don't look...or they simply don't care.

My question is why should the government keep them from removing themselves from the genepool ? I am not sure I know the answer...but I think it is worth asking.

Your last paragraph is an exercise in the discussion (once again...and we always arrive here) on the function of government.

While I may not be as prone to engage in that discussion....I am very much attuned to the fact that I can point to precious few situations where the government actually did something meaningful in this regard.

I think of the Alar scare, the dioxine debacle...the overall Ames test screw up......the so called science that turns out to be not very good science.

And here is a question for some....the speed limit.

Jimmy Carter lowered the speed limit to 55 mph. I've heard that saved lives and fuel. Why are we back to 70 mph ?

I don't misrepresent what other people are thinking at all as the thread rules expressly prohibit
addressing what other people think. I post what I think, supported occasionally by what others say or write, with occasional rebuttal for what others post.

And yes, I keep coming back to function of government regarding what government can dictate as 'healthy' as that is what the thread topic is. And it requires some effort to keep threads on topic. There are many functions of government, some appropriate and some not in my opinion. But this thread is about one function of government and that is regulation of advertising and it is limited even within the scope of that.

Should the government have power to tell a corporation that it cannot advertise its nutrition bar as 'healthy'? That and similar issues is what the thread is about.

 

[Derideo_Te]

We have a credit system that protects lenders from bad customers. Why isnt there a system to protect consumers from corporations with bad records

But there is just such a system. It is called the government of We the People.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Really, we have no other choices ? We have plenty of choices.

Such as?

 

[Derideo_Te]

So, should the government have the authority to regulate advertising? Well, once upon a time, they did not, and this is what us kids were seeing when we turned on cartoon shows on TV:

So what ?

You think that is why kids smoke today ?

Do you think they light up the first one NOT knowing the problems associated with it.

CDC - Trends - Infographics - Smoking Tobacco Use

View attachment 40144

CDC - Trends in Current Cigarette Smoking - Smoking Tobacco Use

A. Your graph shows a peak in 1995....long after ads were banned.

B. 20% of High Schoolers smoke ???? Wow....that is terrible. Seems the government is falling down big time.

What was happening during that peak?

The Tobacco Industry was being forced to pay for all of the harm it had caused by lying about it's product so it needed a way to grow it's shrinking customer base. It did that by deliberately and maliciously targeting High Schoolers.

The trend reversed itself once the Tobacco Industry was forced by the government to pay for advertisements against smoking.

The government did not "fall down". It was simply facing a massively well organized and well funded special interest group that was prepared to buy up the entire government if that is what it took.

Thanks to Citizens United that is what we face again today. And yes, the end result of corporate ownership of government is an Idiocracy. Or if your prefer, Libertarianism in action. That is a distinction without a difference IMO.

So the evidence clearly shows that the reason why we need the Government OF the People to determine what is healthy and to regulate corporations from lying about their products is because we simply cannot trust corporations and there is no other feasible alternative.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Jimmy Carter lowered the speed limit to 55 mph. I've heard that saved lives and fuel. Why are we back to 70 mph ?

Cars today are identical to cars back in the Carter era?

Do they still have poor brakes, iffy handling, no airbags or crumple zones?

Or did the government of We the People step in and require greater safety standards for cars since then?

So because of the government we can now drive safer cars at higher speeds.

FTR it was also the government that pushed for better fuel mileage standards so you aren't stuck with 12 mpg while polluting the atmosphere.

 

[Agit8r]

Where adults are concerned, controlled substances should be limited to dangerous narcotics like heroin. As far as minors go, society should be able to determine what is and is not appropriate to sell them and legislate accordingly, whether it be tobacco or soda pop.

What else would you put on the list ?

And when did parents stop being the primary guardians for children ?

Should children be able to buy booze and porn at the corner market? Get real.

They don't need to go to the corner market to get porn.

In all our wisdom, the internet is rife with it.

I think you are the one who needs to look around.

You didn't answer my question.

My kids have friends who parents were loading them with booze and pot at age 12.

It's parents, not government that gets the job done.

That is all quite beside the point. I knew kids whose parents let them smoke openly in their house. It doesn't mean that kids whose parents are not failures should be able to go into any store and buy cigs on their own.

 

[Derideo_Te]

n the case of the OP, we are dealing with an arbitrary mandate from the federal government

There is nothing "arbitrary" about setting standards for truth in advertising.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Where adults are concerned, controlled substances should be limited to dangerous narcotics like heroin. As far as minors go, society should be able to determine what is and is not appropriate to sell them and legislate accordingly, whether it be tobacco or soda pop.

What else would you put on the list ?

And when did parents stop being the primary guardians for children ?

Should children be able to buy booze and porn at the corner market? Get real.

They don't need to go to the corner market to get porn.

In all our wisdom, the internet is rife with it.

I think you are the one who needs to look around.

You didn't answer my question.

My kids have friends who parents were loading them with booze and pot at age 12.

It's parents, not government that gets the job done.

That is all quite beside the point. I knew kids whose parents let them smoke openly in their house. It doesn't mean that kids whose parents are not failures should be able to go into any store and buy cigs on their own.

You brought up porn.

And it is quite to the point.

I don't disagree with your final statement.

I simply find the rest of the argument lacking.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

n the case of the OP, we are dealing with an arbitrary mandate from the federal government

There is nothing "arbitrary" about setting standards for truth in advertising.

Unless the standards are arbitrary, which in this case they are.

 

[HenryBHough]

Ah yes, with a Democrat in the (former) White House "Healthy Food" seals of approval will go to the highest bidders.

Should that really come as a surprise?

Really?

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Jimmy Carter lowered the speed limit to 55 mph. I've heard that saved lives and fuel. Why are we back to 70 mph ?

Cars today are identical to cars back in the Carter era?

Do they still have poor brakes, iffy handling, no airbags or crumple zones?

Or did the government of We the People step in and require greater safety standards for cars since then?

So because of the government we can now drive safer cars at higher speeds.

FTR it was also the government that pushed for better fuel mileage standards so you aren't stuck with 12 mpg while polluting the atmosphere.

More people die at 70 than at 55. Regardless of the type of car.

Nice try though.

Unless you have an "acceptable" level of death on the highway.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

So, should the government have the authority to regulate advertising? Well, once upon a time, they did not, and this is what us kids were seeing when we turned on cartoon shows on TV:

So what ?

You think that is why kids smoke today ?

Do you think they light up the first one NOT knowing the problems associated with it.

CDC - Trends - Infographics - Smoking Tobacco Use

View attachment 40144

CDC - Trends in Current Cigarette Smoking - Smoking Tobacco Use

A. Your graph shows a peak in 1995....long after ads were banned.

B. 20% of High Schoolers smoke ???? Wow....that is terrible. Seems the government is falling down big time.

What was happening during that peak?

The Tobacco Industry was being forced to pay for all of the harm it had caused by lying about it's product so it needed a way to grow it's shrinking customer base. It did that by deliberately and maliciously targeting High Schoolers.

The trend reversed itself once the Tobacco Industry was forced by the government to pay for advertisements against smoking.

The government did not "fall down". It was simply facing a massively well organized and well funded special interest group that was prepared to buy up the entire government if that is what it took.

Thanks to Citizens United that is what we face again today. And yes, the end result of corporate ownership of government is an Idiocracy. Or if your prefer, Libertarianism in action. That is a distinction without a difference IMO.

So the evidence clearly shows that the reason why we need the Government OF the People to determine what is healthy and to regulate corporations from lying about their products is because we simply cannot trust corporations and there is no other feasible alternative.

Thank you for admitting that pulling the ads didn't work.

YOU may need the the government to protect you from yourself, but don't lump the rest of us in with you.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Dear @G.T

I know that is your argument. But I think I made an adequate argument in the OP for why government should not be making ultimatums and dictates based on scientific opinion that changes with the seasons. Compile the information of what the prevailing scientific opinion is--pro and con--yes. But let the people decide.

The people already do decide, because the products arent being banned.

The company is just not allowed to false advertize its product. Dont know why thats such a harsh dictatorship, to you.

To me, its quite obvious that people are either really really ignorant of what "healthy" means, or they're really really bad at self control.

And this ignorance or lack of self control doesnt only effect themselves. It is a cost driver in the healthcare industry and in the Government (medicare/aid) sector (taxe$).

The government has 3 vested interests here.
- regulating commerce (false advertising)
- healthcare costs
- tax burden

I find it really difficult to see any fault whatsoever with disallowing a nutrition bar from calling itself "healthy" when it contains a leading contributor to heart disease - which last i looked was one of if not THE top killers in America.

Its actually one of the most egregious attempts at false advertising Ive seen.

Dear G.T.
although I agree with the content of your pt, i agree with Foxfyre not to depend on federal govt as a magical fixall. It was never desisned to micromanage every case in every industry.

The root problem is large corporations having collective power as govt has but without checks on them. So we keep bypassing this imbalance and going thru govt to get a collective objection to a collective entity. We cant keep doing that. We should address corporate structures to restore due process and balance. Then that will apply to all cases.

In my opinion, if a corporation's products are inferior, and somebody else offers a better product at an attractive price, the free market will take care of it.

If a corporation is engaged in misconduct that hurts people and/or infringes on their rights or allows a harmful substance in their product that the people have no way to know it is there, there are already plenty of laws in place or legal recourse to address that.

In the case of the OP, we are dealing with an arbitrary mandate from the federal government forbidding a company from advertising its nutrition bar as 'healthy'. Any idiot can look at the ingredients in that nutrition bar and know that it is far more nutritious and 'healthy' than are many things the government does include in its guidelines for a 'healthy' diet.

But whether or not the nutrition bar meets your or my standards for 'healthy', I want the people to be able to decide. I see it as government overreach, excess authoritarianism, and wrong for government to dictate what a private corporation can or cannot advertise as healthy in this case.

I think you misrepresent what others seem to be thinking.

And I might be inclined to agree with them that many people are so stupid they don't look...or they simply don't care.

My question is why should the government keep them from removing themselves from the genepool ? I am not sure I know the answer...but I think it is worth asking.

Your last paragraph is an exercise in the discussion (once again...and we always arrive here) on the function of government.

While I may not be as prone to engage in that discussion....I am very much attuned to the fact that I can point to precious few situations where the government actually did something meaningful in this regard.

I think of the Alar scare, the dioxine debacle...the overall Ames test screw up......the so called science that turns out to be not very good science.

And here is a question for some....the speed limit.

Jimmy Carter lowered the speed limit to 55 mph. I've heard that saved lives and fuel. Why are we back to 70 mph ?

I don't misrepresent what other people are thinking at all as the thread rules expressly prohibit
addressing what other people think. I post what I think, supported occasionally by what others say or write, with occasional rebuttal for what others post.

And yes, I keep coming back to function of government regarding what government can dictate as 'healthy' as that is what the thread topic is. And it requires some effort to keep threads on topic. There are many functions of government, some appropriate and some not in my opinion. But this thread is about one function of government and that is regulation of advertising and it is limited even within the scope of that.

Should the government have power to tell a corporation that it cannot advertise its nutrition bar as 'healthy'? That and similar issues is what the thread is about.

The simple answer has been established....it depends.

There are some who feel they need the government to protect them from the big bad corporations (you know....like GM...the one Obama saved).

There are others who don't feel the government does much except limit our choices and waste our money doing it.

How the government can call anything healthy I don't know.

 

[Agit8r]

Where adults are concerned, controlled substances should be limited to dangerous narcotics like heroin. As far as minors go, society should be able to determine what is and is not appropriate to sell them and legislate accordingly, whether it be tobacco or soda pop.

What else would you put on the list ?

And when did parents stop being the primary guardians for children ?

Should children be able to buy booze and porn at the corner market? Get real.

They don't need to go to the corner market to get porn.

In all our wisdom, the internet is rife with it.

I think you are the one who needs to look around.

You didn't answer my question.

My kids have friends who parents were loading them with booze and pot at age 12.

It's parents, not government that gets the job done.

That is all quite beside the point. I knew kids whose parents let them smoke openly in their house. It doesn't mean that kids whose parents are not failures should be able to go into any store and buy cigs on their own.

You brought up porn.

And it is quite to the point.

I don't disagree with your final statement.

I simply find the rest of the argument lacking.

I didn't address the porn there. But there are tools out there that parents can use to restrict access on their own computer or home network, including not having internet service at all, not buying their children wifi devises etc. Parents can also choose to not take any such precautions, and there is little that society can do about it.

When it comes to businesses or individuals providing porn to minors in person, there are more steps that society can take to stop it. The same applies with tobacco and alcohol. In fact if it were proposed to allow minor to purchase these items freely, there would be considerable animadversion against it. But of course obesity is more harmful than either of these:

The Health Risks of Obesity Worse Than Smoking Drinking or Poverty RAND

 

[Foxfyre]

What else would you put on the list ?

And when did parents stop being the primary guardians for children ?

Should children be able to buy booze and porn at the corner market? Get real.

They don't need to go to the corner market to get porn.

In all our wisdom, the internet is rife with it.

I think you are the one who needs to look around.

You didn't answer my question.

My kids have friends who parents were loading them with booze and pot at age 12.

It's parents, not government that gets the job done.

That is all quite beside the point. I knew kids whose parents let them smoke openly in their house. It doesn't mean that kids whose parents are not failures should be able to go into any store and buy cigs on their own.

You brought up porn.

And it is quite to the point.

I don't disagree with your final statement.

I simply find the rest of the argument lacking.

I didn't address the porn there. But there are tools out there that parents can use to restrict access on their own computer or home network, including not having internet service at all, not buying their children wifi devises etc. Parents can also choose to not take any such precautions, and there is little that society can do about it.

When it comes to businesses or individuals providing porn to minors in person, there are more steps that society can take to stop it. The same applies with tobacco and alcohol. In fact if it were proposed to allow minor to purchase these items freely, there would be considerable animadversion against it. But of course obesity is more harmful than either of these:

The Health Risks of Obesity Worse Than Smoking Drinking or Poverty RAND

Yes, overweight kids is a far greater problem than is a few grams of saturated fat in a nutritional bar. Which goes to the heart of the incongruity and dishonesty of many government mandates that are sold as 'good for the the people' when in fact all they do is restrict our liberties and accomplish little otherwise.

Instead of forcing tasteless, unappealing food on school kids, why not feed them a reasonable lunch that they will enjoy and eat so that they can focus on their afternoon studies instead of their empty stomachs? Severely restricting calories on a one-size-fits-all basis is absurd on the face of it.

And then start a promotion of a voluntary--not mandatory--cultural shift toward fitness for kids that will encourage them to turn off their computer and Xboxes and television sets and smart phones and get out and move. That is far more likely to remedy child obesity than forcing meager food that they hate on them.

As far as that nutritional bar goes? As long as it is adequately labeled with the nutritional information on it, the people who buy it should decide whether it is or is not healthy for them. That should not be a government function to do.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Corporations always do what is best for you, without any interference from the government. Turning Love Canal into a toxic waste site was actually in the public's best interest. it has created billions of dollars in jobs....

Strawman

Corporations utilize government to protect themselves from their poor decisions.

And they use government to create barriers to entry so that they can modulate prices higher than the market might otherwise dictate.

Try starting a restaraunt and see how much red tape you hit. It's not wonder that we mostly have the Chile's, Applebee,s and Burger Kings...etc. of the world.

I used to own a restaurant. The health department was completely unreasonable. They demanded that i wash the chicken cutting board every single day.....

 

[Vandalshandle]

And today, the government has saved us from a Comcast/Time Warner merger. As far as I am concerned, everyone on the FCC should be given a medal!

 

[Foxfyre]

Dear @G.T

The government doesnt have a track record of being wrong.

The sciences were wrong.

Stop conflating the two.

And it is very detrimental to ones health to think that a food is healthy when it's not, and so it meets your own standard for when the Government SHOULD interfere, which you described above.

Your onion example fails again also, because outliers dont (and shouldnt) effect a national standard. Meaning - people can be allergic to almonds and that doesnt disqualify them as being categorized as HEALTHY because the science says otherwise.

I know that is your argument. But I think I made an adequate argument in the OP for why government should not be making ultimatums and dictates based on scientific opinion that changes with the seasons. Compile the information of what the prevailing scientific opinion is--pro and con--yes. But let the people decide.

The people already do decide, because the products arent being banned.

The company is just not allowed to false advertize its product. Dont know why thats such a harsh dictatorship, to you.

To me, its quite obvious that people are either really really ignorant of what "healthy" means, or they're really really bad at self control.

And this ignorance or lack of self control doesnt only effect themselves. It is a cost driver in the healthcare industry and in the Government (medicare/aid) sector (taxe$).

The government has 3 vested interests here.
- regulating commerce (false advertising)
- healthcare costs
- tax burden

I find it really difficult to see any fault whatsoever with disallowing a nutrition bar from calling itself "healthy" when it contains a leading contributor to heart disease - which last i looked was one of if not THE top killers in America.

Its actually one of the most egregious attempts at false advertising Ive seen.

Dear G.T.
although I agree with the content of your pt, i agree with Foxfyre not to depend on federal govt as a magical fixall. It was never desisned to micromanage every case in every industry.

The root problem is large corporations having collective power as govt has but without checks on them. So we keep bypassing this imbalance and going thru govt to get a collective objection to a collective entity. We cant keep doing that. We should address corporate structures to restore due process and balance. Then that will apply to all cases.

Actually we can keep on using the government OF the People because that is what it was specifically constructed to do. There is no other entity that keep corporations in check and so We the People are left without any other choice. Either we use our government to protect ourselves from the predations of corporations or we hand over all power to Corporate America and we become an Idiocracy instead.

Thanks DT but there still must be a better way than micromanaging case by case for each industry.

If we address corporate responsibilty head on, that would cover all cases of petitioning for accountability.

What id propose is another line of law, besides just civil or criminal.
And address Constitutional ethics and abuses that arent proven to be crimes or violations yet, but conflicts of interest or complaints in general before these escalate further.

Issues of media bias, religious or secular beliefs affecting public policy, political parties, nonprofit or profit corporations could all be addressed for purposes of facilitating and redressing grievances by free choice to correct problems. Then the public can have a track record of company ethics, and if the pattern is abusive the state can have grounds for revoking the charter license if grievances are not resolved.

We have a credit system that protects lenders from bad customers. Why isnt there a system to protect consumers from corporations with bad records

There is. It's called the Better Business Bureau, and at the federal level it's called the Federal Trade Commission.

But if you put enough regulation on the 'bad guys' who engage in unethical corporate practices to prevent those practices, you would also put enough regulation on the 'good guys' to be detrimental to us all.

The BBB is especially beneficial as it identifies a lot of the scams out there that cast a bad light on this or that corporation and makes the correct information available. But it also records each and every valid customer complaint and makes that available too.

And if you think the BBB won't pick on the big boys, you can look up Microsoft that lost its accreditation with BBB due to so many complaints and is graded "F" with the reasons cited for that failing grade. All of us probably still use Microsoft products just the same, but we don't expect much in the way of good business practices and ethics from that company--and we make our decisions accordingly.

Let the private sector deal with whether advertising is to be trusted or not. That should not be a government function unless the advertising produces a clear and provable danger to the public. Certainly manufacturers of rat poison should not be able to advertise it as 'safe for human consumption.'

But to declare that a nutritional bar can't be advertised as 'healthy' because of some arbitrary standard for saturated fat is going way beyond the public interest and should not be a prerogative of government.

 

[G.T.]

Regulations dont all cost money, or hurt a business.

Thats why we need money out of politics, to guage regulation vs. Cost prohibitive regulation and keep the fucking croney lobbyists the fuck outta d.c.'s ears/wallets.