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I think that the solution to a complex problem is always a complex answer. And in this case, it's "both/and": BOTH personal responsibility AND regulation to make healthy choices easier to make.
You can't realistically insist that people be iron-willed at all times when the vast majority of choices around them are unhealthy, and the messages they're being bombarded with encourage indulgence and instant gratification, not long-term well-being. It's all fine and good to insist that people SHOULD do that, but if you're going to find a workable solution you need to be realistic and work with people's capacities and not insist that they live up to some ideal.
Similarly, you can't expect government to protect us from ourselves all of the time. I don't want butter to be rationed depending on your cholesterol, or for unhealthy options to be eliminated completely. But I do think that advertising is way over the fucking top, especially when aimed at children when they're forming habits and preferences that are hard to counteract, however good a parent you are. It's not enough that billions of dollars are spent figuring out how to make people buy products - they're startign to do neuroimaging of subjects while watching advertising so they can see if ads are activating the "right" centers of the brain, the parts that determine whether you're really turned on by the ad. Granted, it doesn't guarantee that you're going to act on that impulse, but it makes the advertisers that much more effective at steering you in the direction of making a choice that is favorable to THEM, not necessarily to YOU. I find it frightening, and I think that something needs to be done to curb the power of corporations.
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France
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