Is food the new tobacco?
Monday, April 28, 2008 Late on Friday it was announced that a private member's bill designed to make it an offence to promote "less healthy" foodstuffs to children had failed to pass its second reading in the House of Commons. Thankfully, opposition MPs blocked the bill which included a 9.00pm television watershed for "junk food" advertising and restrictions on "non-broadcast marketing".
In particular, former Conservative minister Christopher Chope struck a blow for common sense when he said the bill would do little to tackle obesity and argued that parents are responsible for their children's diets.
Needless to say, the health police isn't listening. According to Ruairi O'Connor of the British Heart Foundation, "Junk food companies have been given a last shot to prove they can put the interests of children first, and take the issue of childhood obesity seriously, before the government will surely be forced to regulate."
Some time ago I gave a speech ("Is food the new tobacco?") at a seminar organised by the Adam Smith Institute. It's still relevant (I think) so an edited version is published HERE on today's Free Society blog.
Reader Comments (3)
It's a crazy. You can often see scenes of a violent or sexual nature and also of hardcore drug abuse before 9pm on TV these days. I can remember when sizzling TV was a 2 second shot of a topless woman in a late night movie not two rashers of Danishhhh in a pan!
Sorry Simon if this is the wrong spot, but there seems to be a lot of talk at the moment of radioactivity in tobacco, mostly polonium 210, and it being responsible for millions of deaths in the last 50 or 60 years.
In the abomnible 'smoking animal' experiments over the same period, NO animals ever developed lung tumours, although they were smoking such massive amounts,which would be impossible for a human, of the 'modern' cigarettes, containing the mentioned radioactive substance, all of their poor lives.This may come as a surprise to some, but given the propaganda we've endured, not unexpected. Animals endured passive smoke 24 hours a day ALL their lives in small cabinets and did NOT develop disease and lived just as long as the 'control' animals who had no smoke.
The only time lung tumours were seen was when they were subjected to high radiation levels, or, significantly, when toxins were put in their food and drink! Now THAT fact is very interesting. Food and drnk----lungs?
As for spouting about radiation in smoke, the amount is far less than we take in eating and drinking, but if this 'anti-smoking' lie is taken to be true by those fighting the bans, then this is giving serious ammunition to the Antis, and is also one of the fraudulant facts about passive smoking that they use. Be seen to believe this propaganda and you haven't a leg to stand on as opposition to the ETS scandal.
The indoctrination is all around, even when we don't realize it, and don't research who actually published these claims, and why.They're clever and come in disguise.
Thank you Zitori. I too have read the twaddle about radioactive tobacco and I too believe this will be utilised by the anitsmoking movement as another weapon in their armory. I have also tried to find experimental evidence of smoking related cancer. Such evidence does not exist. No one has ever succeeded in experimentally inducing cancer with cigarette smoke. The famous smoking beagles were, in addition to being participants in a very poorly designed experiment, members of a breed that spontanously develop lung neoplasms and bowel cancer as well as arthritis and dermatitis. In breeding can do that for you.