Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinn
In case anyone is wondering what kind of strange metaphor McDonald's Happy Meals are for conservatives, they're talking about this:
OH NOES! McDonalds can't sell things with toys that have MORE THAN 600 CALORIES!! YOU KNOW, LIKE THE ENTIRE DAILY ALLOWANCE FOR A CHILD! NANNY-STATE LIBERALISM!
Sad day for conservatives when they have to defend corporations at all costs.. when the government cannot interfere with corporations at all without disturbing some sort of free-market ideal, where government actually regulating anything is "too much government".. or somehow indicative of a problem..
|
Apparently this is a hot button for some of you. And it seems that some are simply unwilling to step back and look at the issue from a broader point of view. If you think targeting Happy Meals is the solution to obesity in this country, I think your focus is skewed- putting it as kindly as I can think to do. I can tell you what the issues are and you ignore them. For example the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in some urban and low income areas is inadequate and the processed food alternatives are the only cost effective choice for some. I can tell you (if you never had to feed a 4 year old), that getting some children to eat a Happy Meal hamburger because of the toy is a big deal when ordinarily all they want is that one favorite food is very valuable to parents. I can give multiple examples of food police run-amuck with pure silliness like banning Four-Loco for a caffeine/alcohol combination but not banning rum and coke. So after all of that, including the standard - we are off track - yet we keep going back to it - pattern , what is a guy like me to think about all of this?
---------- Post added at 09:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown
Yeah this is somethingf I don;t understand about some conservatives terrified of taking a shower with a homosexual fellow soldier but fearless up against a heterosexual terrorist with an 80lb machinegun and orders to kill him.
|
This is media creating a story where there is none. The folks in the military know who is gay and who is not and they have been living with it for a long time. The problem with DADT has been a political problem and a problem of leadership both from Washington and the Pentagon. sure if you look hard enough you can find a guy some where who will make a big deal about the shower thing, but that is not the norm.
---------- Post added at 09:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Isn't there something about marketing cigarettes to minors as well?
|
Let's not let real information get in the way of a good theory. It appears even with a ban on marketing cigarettes to minors, many still make the choice to smoke.
Quote:
Although smoking trends among American high school students had sharply decreased during the late 1990s, a new study shows that the rate of decline in smoking among teenagers has began to level off. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its latest findings from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
As of 2009, the CDC estimates that 19.5% of teenagers are current smokers, a percentage that has only slightly decreased since 2003, whereas the previous rate of decline from 1999 to 2003 was much more dramatic. As outlined in its Healthy People 2010 initiative, the United States has not met its ten-year goal of reducing teen smoking rates below 16 percent by the year 2010.
During the early 1990s, teenage smoking rates were on a progressive rise. In 1991, an estimated 27.5% of teenagers were current smokers, according to the YRBS. By 1997, this percentage jumped to 36.4%. However, beginning in 1999, statistics showed a drop in adolescent smokers and continued to steadily decline for 4 more years. By 2003, the percentage of adolescent smokers fell by 12.9%. Yet from 2003 to 2009, not much change in the rate of decline occurred. In 2003, 21.9% of teenagers were current smokers, a statistic that fell only by 2.4% within six years. When divided into demographics, age groups, and gender, the weak decline or plateau in smoking rates among teenagers was still apparent. The prevalence of teenage smokers has always remained highest among white males, and the amount of teenage smokers gradually increases with grade levels between ninth and twelfth grades. The prevalence of adolescent cigarette smoking has always remained the lowest among non-Hispanic black females.
|
Teen Smoking Rates Remain High | Addiction Treatment
We should focus on real solutions. These theoretical bans (smart/motivated people get around them) don't work and history shows that time and time.