I was unaware that it was still possible to buy real sugar in this country.

(That is a winky because I made a sarcastic joke regarding corn subsidies. I think that legally qualifies me as an adult.)

Those "Health experts" can f*ck off.

(Start cynicism)
No, the Midwest must remain bribed.
(End cynicism)

Cutting corn subsidies would probably fix a large portion of the problem by itself. Corn (and sugar derivatives) are in everything because they are so staggeringly cheap.

Ending subsidies: one place Robear and I can agree.

I agree but it'll never happen. Overweight/sickly people are too valuable to Big Pharm and corporations and they'd lobby as hard as ever against any bill that pushes subsidies for healthy food.

Aso from the bbc link

I'm not sure how true that statement really is, more specifically where exactly the price line would be for the general public. With a long seated addiction even if quality fruits and vegetables were available at a lower cost many would probably still reach for what they know/deem to taste good/are hooked on.

Perhaps one way around that would be to twist the system so much that the average person simply can not handle the financial burden of eating anything other than healthier foods. However higher costs, even to the point of being unaffordable, have never stopped people from smoking, drinking, gambling, etc.

I'd rather end the subsidies and let the chips fall where they may. So to speak. Behavioral modification by law is the bluntest of blunt weapons.

So the easy and cheap availability of corn and wheat products, and meat (based on cheap corn and wheat feed) has done nothing to the trend? I remember when chicken was reasonably expensive and beef was a once-a-week treat. If you make tasty but high calorie food cheap, more people will eat more of it. And that has certainly happened.

There's more to it than "Americans are lazy and gluttonous". They have to be able to afford to be that way, and government policies have done that. If those policies are undone, that will have some effect.

The fact that you can say this and no one bats an eye, yet when I point it out I get an angry mob after me, leads me to believe I need to work on my tone a bit.

Sure. but that's only half the puzzle. At the same point in time, it would have also been considered impossible to be topping that cheap meat with a mango chutney in February, or to top that sugary pound cake with fresh, never-frozen berries for your New Year's Eve bash. All food has gotten cheaper and more readily available. Even in Podunk Tennessee, we get apples shipped fresh from Kazakhstan and berries fresh from Peru. You know that I think corn and wheat subsidies pervert the market, but I don't think that the subsidies are actually at fault for making people fat.

Well, I think people may choose it more over other foods, given the option. It does not naturally follow that they will eat more food in general. You seem to want to remove personal responsibility from the equation as much as possible, and I just don't buy it.

I'm obviously against subsidies, as I think they're a horrendous waste of resources, but I'm also against all the tariffs we have set up, sugar in particular. Our sugar subsidies may be keeping our sugar relatively cheap at 50 cents/pound, but were we to lift our tariffs we could obtain sugar from Brazil for about a tenth of that. Would that make people ten times fatter? No. It would give us ever-increasing options and lower the percentage of time and money we have to spend on food -- which is A Good Thing.

It's not about what people eat; it's about how much of it they consume.

Folks may know this already, but I've been trying to get into local police departments for the last couple months. I have, so far, taken two physical agility and readiness tests for two separate departments. Both had some variation of the Army Physical Readiness Test watered down so folks could pass it. In the case of one department, the requirements were roughly half the base requirements for the APRT. The other was even more lenient.

I, of course, had no issue blowing the doors off the requirements and even found myself in the top tier of physical candidates. What did surprise me, however, was the number of younger folks that couldn't manage it. Folks that looked like they should be able to. Skinny folks or folks with some gym time. Folks that had just, six months earlier, gotten out of military service.

It occurred to me that the physical requirements (25 pushups in one minute, 35 situps in one minute, 1.5 mile run in under 13 minutes) were all requirements I was expected to pass back in high school annual physical fitness assessments. And I don't recall more than a handful of folks back then failing to meet or exceed them.

I suspect this might have a non-trivial impact on our culture of obesity.

Sad that nature wants me to pay 32 bucks for that article, it looks very intrigueing.

What, I'm chopped liver now?

Well, which is it? Either it's "half the puzzle" and contributes like the other causes, or it's not "actually at fault"? I'm arguing that it's a combination of things, as opposed to just people being weak and eating too much and exercising too little. It's a mix of causes, and subsidies decreased the cost of a meat-based and high carb diet. That's certainly an enabler, is my point. It's not the only factor, but then, I never said it was, nor did I think it or imply it or whatever.

Where do you get that from? Is it when I said that "part of the trend" was the easy availability of cheap, subsidized high status and tasty food? Or when I said that there's more to the problem than just people being gluttonous? Or when I said that if the subsidies were changed, that would have "some effect"? I think you're reading what you want to see in my response, not what was actually there - my point being that we *both* have cited valid contributors to the obesity epidemic, and we need to consider the whole picture to arrive at a solution. You seem to agree, but then you don't seem to get that I'm not making a one-sided argument, so you think I disagree. With my own point, apparently.

Every politician knows exactly why he's here
He's on a sacred mission to tax cigarettes and beer
Alas, it's working all too well, and less is coming in
There's only one thing left to do...
Create a few more "sins".

How about a few of these...

If you order cappuccino with a straw- it's a sin
If you order jumbo fries and eat them all- it's a sin
Anything containing meat
Anything that's really sweet
It's a sin

Anything you drink to satisfy your thirst is a sin
Any cereal with sugar listed first is a sin
If you have a can of cola or a meal without granola
Then it's time to make amends by chipping in
If you knew you should avoid it
But you ate it and enjoyed it
It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin!

Everyone can help the nation right away
by succumbing to temptation once a day
It's the medieval way- we'll forgive you once you pay
And you'll see the revenues come rolling in
We can save the nation's health
Once we confiscate its wealth
Why not begin... by adding in... a few more "sins"?

(credit to Dave Ross)