Losing (the plot)
According to a study backed by the British government:
Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity
Because things go so well for everyone involved when we treat people like babies, right? Perry de Havilland:
[I]n the western world the fascist approach to control (you may ‘own’ the means of production but you must use them in accordance with national political directives, i.e you are completely regulated and thus have liability without control) has completely triumphed over the socialist approach to control (the state, euphemised as ‘The People’, directly owns everything and you are simply a politically directed deployable unit of labour). And of course ‘labour’ means you and what you do with your body. This particular means of production is already only ‘owned’ by you provided you use it in a politically approved manner. And that will soon include what you may eat or may not eat.
Filed under: Life
This is dire and terrifying. And incredible, that the British gov’t doesn’t realize (or, admit to realizing) that their blanket minstrations and requirements will only further create — and perhaps mandate — a system where people are neither expected nor allowed to take responsibility for themselves. It is, as Perry says, either deliberately created thus, or the politicians themselves are made of what they seek to create.
As for “energy-dense, cheap food [being] partly to blame,” this is bullshit; such food is utopian — pemmican, anyone? — if you know how to use it.
This isn’t just a study; this is a Foresight study.
(Apologies to Dervla Kirwan, the M&S voice-over because I cannot say this in her voice!)
Foresight does ‘futures’ work for the government and if this is their insight into the future, well so be it. When we hit nadir, there will only be one way - up. Until then, lets all collectively head southwards…
What amazes me is that I interviewed a number of people (”experts”) for my PhD research who have served on this panel too. If only one could hear their interviews on tape and contrast them with the compromising stances they have agreed to, here. The realpolitik of the Foresight programme is astounding! This is not ‘futures’ work; this is what “negotiated agreements on futures” would look like in the absence of political leadership and gumption to stand behind one’s beliefs - and that ominous thing called data…
Would it be rude or callous to point out that if, as the BBC puts it, “An obese person dies on average nine years earlier than somebody of normal weight, while a very obese person’s life is cut short by an average of 13 years”, then we (society, government, employers, taxpayers, whatever) will save a fortune on pension payments and other benefits? And that a lot of the health care costs of treating obese people would have been spent on them later in life anyway, if they had not been obese? Plus the tax raised from fast-food restaurants, the distribution of obesity over different socio-economic groups, etc. I suspect that if someone did a detailed cost-benefit analysis of obesity or smoking, the conclusion may not be what we take for granted, or what we may like to hear.
Either way, my vote is for individual freedom and responsibility.
If your vote is for individual freedom and responsibility, then I’m not quite sure why you think “society, government, employers, taxpayers, whatever” should have a stake in what one chooses to eat.
This is only one reason why government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare is disastrous. If you have any time at all for your civil rights, you cannot have any time at all for socialized healthcare (or for a system in which those who cannot or will not pay are subsidized by force by others who have no choice in the matter).
There is no such thing as junk food, and even if there was, I would not trust the government to be able to identify it.
As a commenter on Samizdata put it:
We know the answer.
Jackie, sorry if I didn’t explain very well. I most certainly do not believe that diet should be anything other than a personal choice. My point was that those who try to impose their opinions of what we should be eating upon us often use an economic argument that the government must act, because of the huge financial cost of obesity. But is this cost accurately calculated? Are they including the money saved by obesity? However unpleasant, it may be financially beneficial for society as a whole if some members of it overeat and underexercise (or smoke) their way to an early grave. I don’t know if this is true, but it would be interesting for someone to calculate whether it is or not.
Here’s the thing: Individual freedom is sacred. There is no cost/benefit analysis in the world that could put a dollar value on it. The task of trying to do so is just pretending as if there is.
I agree (hence the “either way” in my first message).