The Idea Of The Government Regulating Your Diet
Widespread political debates in the United States typically relate to guns, abortion, or conservation. Most everyone is familiar with this plethora of two-sided disputes, and everything else tends to be more concrete. We often take for granted, for example, having the ability to drive to a supermarket and purchase nearly anything one could desire. As a result, many “self-appointed nutrition czars” seem to affirm the general population of the U. S. is incapable of making decisions for themselves relating to their diet. Few have taken time to appreciate the time and organization it takes to orchestrate a mass network of food production for the people.
Along with the lack of interest here comes a lack of concern: there would seem to be an underlying issue that the average citizen would seem to glance over. Today’s governments are invariably trying to find ways to become more involved in our lives, and the food industry is no exception. Now, disputes relating to how much control the government should have over regulating food are becoming more prominent.
A major issue causing this new concept is the obesity epidemic that’s been prevalent throughout the past fifty or so years. Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, plans on attempting to reduce sales of soda and fast-food items at restaurants and movie theatres in an attempt to “combat the rising obesity epidemic”. According to national data amassed by Harvard, thirty-five percent of adult men and over forty percent of adult women were obese (speaking in terms of the body mass index) as of 2014, and that number certainly hasn’t decreased since then. Another study, conducted by NEJM in 2017 suggests that “more than half of U. S. children will be considered obese as adults if current trends continue”. In this study, researchers at NEJM “pooled height and weight data” totalling over 175,000 observations from over 40,000 children and adults. Using these collected data points, they produced multiple simulation models to predict growth trajectories over a span from 2010 to 2030. Although in recent years, a broad range of medical efforts has reduced the ubiquity of obesity among young children, as many as 57% of these children between the ages of 2 and 19 are projected to be deemed obese by the age of thirty-five. Brilliantly visualized by Telegraph Travel using data from the CIA World Factbook, journalists created an interactive diagram depicting the most obese countries around the world (greatest ratio of obese to non-obese population).
Contrary to what some people may believe, the United States doesn’t measure up as the utmost ‘obese’ country in the world; although it doesn’t need to be to be considered a problem. The U. S. along with many other major territories such as the United Kingdom and Egypt have major weight problems. As there are many causes to this issue, there is an abundance of solutions as well. Stef Daniel states that one of the biggest underlying issues of our society is that individuals are “no longer held accountable for his or her actions. ” (Daniel 2018) He elaborates on how it’s far too easy to blame one’s own issues on the government, where they themselves may be at fault. As explained in Daniel’s article, one shouldn’t be able to sue a fast-food company for simply causing them to gain a few pounds. It’s the duty of the individual to monitor what they’re consuming and introducing into their body, and the proposed regulations would contradict this argument. Referring to monitoring one’s intake, In all fairness, the U. S. government would likely care much less about the obesity epidemic if it didn’t cost them billions of dollars per year. “The U. S. government pays an exuberant amount of money to welfare recipients each year who have medical problems that are linked to obesity and poor diet. ” states S. Daniel. For many, the proposed solution is to have governmental bodies regulate the food industry more harshly than they already are.
There are many flaws to this method, though. To begin, restaurants and businesses would have to completely reform their infrastructure, and enforcing regulations such as these would force many popular brands to pay substantial taxes to stay in business. These ordinances won’t be coming anytime soon, though; the preponderance of the public believes that the responsibility of selecting healthy foods should be in the hands of the people, and may even argue that it’s their constitutional right.
Although the founding fathers most likely did not intend on regulating chips and sweets, it could unquestionably become a reality in the foreseeable future. Another issue with this regulation method is the diversity in ethnicity, age, and needs for different specific individuals. No two physiques are like, meaning everyone holds their own dietary needs and preferences. Government-recommended diets are not healthy for all people; for example, someone with a sodium deficiency will need to compensate for that issue. The same concept persists for others with special dietary requirements and eventually, the number of special cases would become far too great for a government to handle, especially in a country as large, developed, and with as many established practices as the United States.
