
Doctors' plan for war on sugar - okket
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/advertising-banned-drinks-taxed-vending-machines-removed-doctors-plan-for-war-on-sugar-20180105-h0duw0.html
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lamename
Seeing a few comments about "personal responsibility" here. I used to feel
this way, but only toward behavior that came naturally to me. For things I
have to work toward, it's always a work in progress.

There are a good amount of productivity hacks and emphasis on time management
skills on HN; should I dismiss those articles with a complaint about personal
responsibility? No. 'Just try harder' rarely works. If it was that easy, you
wouldn't have to try harder in the first place.

Personal responsibility exists, but the human brain is lazy and impulsive, and
it takes a ton of outside intervention to get it aligned with modern society
(parents, schooling, socialization, etc.). It's no wonder we have appetite
control problems since we're dealing with human hardware that's hundreds of
thousands of years old.

~~~
tstrimple
Completely agree. Personal responsibility is what you teach your kids, not how
you design effective systems.

~~~
lamename
Heh, I could interpret your comment in 2 opposing ways, not sure which one you
meant.

To be clear, I have mixed feelings on the "war on sugar". It's just that the
"Whatever happened to personal responsibility" cliche others have brought up
is shortsighted.

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b3b0p
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Seattle Sugar Tax [0]. Forgive me I
don't know much about it and I don't live in Seattle, but I saw this on the
/r/seattle subreddit and was surprised. (I am entertaining the idea of
relocating to Seattle from Austin. Thus, that's why I was browsing that
subreddit.)

[0] [https://i.redd.it/0sfewnke5h801.jpg](https://i.redd.it/0sfewnke5h801.jpg)

~~~
nitemice
It looks like such a tax has been introduced in quite a few places now, with
results ranging from okay to good.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax)

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brucephillips
To avoid a nanny state, I'd prefer to see taxation and education be the sole
solutions. People should be allowed to eat whatever they want, but they need
to pay their own healthcare costs somehow.

~~~
wasx
> I'd prefer to see taxation and education be the sole solutions

The market is incapable of self-regulation, that much has shown itself to be
true. Removal of marketing towards children and easy access to vending
machines will go a long way in improving public health in Australia. The days
of avoiding a nanny state in Australia are pretty much gone, the government
regulates _everything_ , and for the most part it hasn't actually been bad at
all.

> but they need to pay their own healthcare costs somehow.

Terrible idea, Medicare is one of Australia's shining institutions (even with
all it's bureaucratic flaws). The American healthcare model has literally 0
chance of ever being adopted in Australia. The simple fact is we live in a
socialised society, and so when burdens are placed on the public
infrastructure from profit hungry corporations, the natural response is to
regulate and deal with it. We saw it with cigarettes, hopefully we see it with
sugar, and one day with alcohol too.

~~~
Zalastax
> but they need to pay their own healthcare costs somehow.

I think you should read this as arguing for Tax on Negative Externality, also
called a Pigovian tax. Such taxation aims to solve the problem that the social
cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity.

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wasx
Good. Sugar is a horribly addictive substance, and the outcomes of it's
consumption and abuse are a massive drain on Australia's public health
infrastructure. Hopefully however the sugar tax is coupled with some form of
subsidy or relief from high prices of healthier alternatives (the groundwork
exists with a GST exemption for fruit & veg) because obesity has a
disproportionate affect on people in lower income brackets due to how cheap
and easy it is to buy some processed garbage.

~~~
PostOnce
The outcomes of going outside without a hat and sunscreen are a drain too; in
Australia, skin cancer kills thousands of people per year and requires
hundreds of thousands of people per year to be treated.

Should going outside without a hat on be ticketable?

And what about people over 70, falls cause many bone and brain injuries, and
many deaths in the elderly, and it's expensive and dangerous. Should we
require a helmet and kneepads for anyone over 70 to be work at all times when
walking?

And what about salt? Heart problems come from more places than obesity, and
it's heart problems that are a huge drain on the healthcare system; will we
also ban salt?

How about a sedentary office lifestyle, this is also bad for your health, will
we tax sitting? Will the gym, like voting, become compulsory in Australia?

~~~
wasx
You can make up all these outrageous examples which don't correlate to what I
said in any way shape or form at all as much as you like, but just know you
aren't convincing anyone or making a compelling argument.

Skin cancer and heart disease are major issues as is the elderly falling over,
and if there were predatory organisations which were peddling products that
abused human weakness to capitalize on addiction, or running around pushing
old people over, I think we should look into handling those organizations.
However salt and sunshine are absolutely vital to the proper functioning of
the human body, whereas eating a bag of skittles and downing six bottles of
coke is not. And corporations are out there peddling sugar because it sells,
and that is predatory behaviour and the bill is footed by the Australian
public for the profit seeking of a tiny minority. That is what this
recommendation seeks to stop.

~~~
PostOnce
A good argument, and a reasonable one, but we do have game, TV, and social
media companies doing whatever they can to ensure a sedentary life of staring
at screens, since the more you sit and stare (and develop mental and physical
health problems) the more ads or iaps they can feed you and profit from. No
one suggest we tax sitting or screen time.

I'll concede sun and salt are in a different category, but it seems morally
wrong to tax my sugar because someone else can't moderate their own intake.
Why is it our position anyway, to tell someone what they can't do if it
doesn't affect us? If we tax sugar, alcohol, salt, etc, then the man who has
these each in moderation, once a month or whatever, is now paying higher taxes
not on one product, but across the board, where none of it harms him because
he partakes rarely of any one category.

~~~
Retric
If you eat less than the average amount of sugar then a sugar tax is
equivalent to giving you money by reducing your tax burden at the expense of
others.

~~~
PostOnce
That's true, but limiting someone else's freedom to save yourself some money
seems to me to be pretty evil. -- I guess what you said doesn't conflict with
that idea.

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dnprock
How about making nutrition facts label to tell me how much added sugar per
serving. Yesterday, I had to search the internet to find added sugar in
Chobani yogurt.

Then we make law to print warning labels about the danger of sugar on every
product that has added sugar.

These would be more effective than tax.

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maxxxxx
I would prefer a war on processed foods if you absolutely need the the war
metaphor. The sugar issue would resolve itself if people ate mainly real
foods. For example: don't drink fruit juice but eat fruit.

~~~
tstactplsignore
This is an incoherent standard, though. Fruits are better than fruit juice
because they retain the fruit's fiber, not because they were "processed". What
does "processed" even mean? Nothing coherent. We can and should and honestly
must be processing foods in ways that are conducive to health and
environmental friendliness (think Soylent, Beyond Meat, the Impossible Burger
as the earliest attempts at this) - and not making some ridiculously arbitrary
decision.

~~~
maxxxxx
Fruit juice you buy in the store goes through a lot of processing. Do you know
how many oranges you need to make a glass of juice? You would never eat that
many in one sitting. So a glass of store bought fruit juice gives you much
more sugar than you would get eating real fruit.

Things like veggie burgers are probably a little better but when I look at the
ingredient list it's still scary long. I can make burgers myself from around 5
ingredients or less.

~~~
lkbm
> Things like veggie burgers are probably a little better but when I look at
> the ingredient list it's still scary long. I can make burgers myself from
> around 5 ingredients or less.

Sure, but why is 5 ingredients better? That's the question you haven't offered
any defense of.

I just ate a sandwich. I put _three_ kinds of peppers on it. Would it have
been better for me if I'd only put two? It had soy-based meant on it. Would it
have been better for me if it'd had regular ham instead?

"Less processed" _might_ be a useful heuristic for health, and "fewer
ingredients" is likely a useful heuristic for "less processed", but you've
presented no _evidence_ for that claim, and it's _definitely_ very far from
universally true.

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kesor
About time.

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bamboozled
I don't get why as humans we like to have "wars on things", can't we just
educate people about things and use some self control to tackle these kind of
issues.

I mean look what happened to "the war on fat", the sugar war will be no
different. I feel that excess consumption of artificial sweeteners, salts or
fats will be the next problem.

~~~
comstock
Does education work, in terms of improving health? Does it work better than
regulation?

I guess there should be data on this (in relation to tobacco/ alcohol).

My personal biases tell me that people don’t have great self control. Shifting
social norms, such that over-consumption is less socially acceptable might
help. But that’s hard to do (and something different than education).

~~~
lj3
> Does education work, in terms of improving health?

No. This has been beaten to death in dozens of studies going back to the 50s.
Education does not trump brain chemistry.

> Shifting social norms, such that over-consumption is less socially
> acceptable might help.

It would help a lot, but food purity laws would help more. It would be nice if
I could find a loaf of bread in a supermarket that didn't have HFCS in it.

~~~
comstock
If you have a link to a good study, I would be interested in reading.

Regarding beard, curiously enough I’ve just started using a bread maker. Takes
5mins to setup in the evening and can be timed to have the bread ready when
you wake up, recommend.

------
aceoflulu
Watch: "That Sugar Film", "Sugar Coated", "Fed Up".

------
jdavis703
Sugar is not the primary problem. I eat copious amounts of sugar (probably too
much). This ranges from refined sugar in sweets, lots of fruits, juices and
even soda. I've been vegetarian for over a decade now, and my BMI Is 23.5, my
body fat percentage is 14.5% and my blood sugar level is still considered in
the good range for preventing diabetes. I don't think the problem is sugar,
the problem is living a sedentary life style, and perhaps even eating lots of
processed red meats.

My point being, a war on sugar is the wrong way to battle the obesity crisis.
Get people to eat more fruits and veggies and to spend more active time
outdoors.

~~~
hannob
Do you know the difference between anecdotes and science?

~~~
jdavis703
Here's some science then. Based on analyzing food groups controlled with total
calorie consumption, it was found that meat availability is most highly
correlated with obesity:
[https://bmcnutr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40795-01...](https://bmcnutr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40795-016-0063-9)

~~~
okket
So you are saying that when you eat the same amount of calories, meat is
better at getting you fat? How does this debunk the problems with sugar in
your view?

~~~
DrScump
Note that it studies meat _availability_ , not meat _consumption_.

~~~
okket
You get more likely fat by looking at meat?

Besides that, I agree that meat is a superior food compared to sugar and it
will get you more easily fat, if compared on calorie by calorie base.

But this does not say anything about the addictiveness of sugar or the health
problems that come from overconsumption (diabetes, etc).

Will say, most people can control their meat intake (some not), but most can
not control how much sugar they consume. Especially if it is omnipresent and
hidden in many foods you might not suspect.

~~~
DrScump

      meat... will get you more easily fat if compared on calorie (for) calorie (basis)
    

I think that's exactly wrong. I can think of no mechanism by which, say, 1000
calories of excess fat+protein would cause more net fat gain than 1000
calories of excess carbohydrate.

~~~
lkbm
How about if one results in you later consuming fewer calories than the other
by affecting the production (and reception) of leptin, insulin, and maybe a
dozen other hormones?

~~~
DrScump
Yes, that's exactly the point -- meat/fat have much higher satiety than
carbohydrate and less effect on insulin.

