Fat & Food Wars

To what degree should we rely on consumers to make an “informed choice” about what they eat or should manufacturers carry a bigger burden of responsibility?

Personally, I think it is up to the individual to make the choice of what they eat and it is their responsibility to ensure that what they choose is the best choice for their lifestyle and health. Over 170 companies including leading supermarkets have signed up to the “responsibility deal” to promote healthy living. I believe there is only so much these companies can do, they cannot force consumers to choose the healthier option it is a decision that must come from the consumers themselves. There are strict guidelines on labelling which enable consumers to be aware of which foods or drinks are better for them. The labels clearly display the ingredients included and show how many calories are included and how much salt etc the product includes from this consumers should be able to make an educated guess of what is the healthier option.

It could be argued that some labels are not clear to the consumer which can cause confusion on which foods are actually healthy and which are not however, I think that most consumers are generally well educated on what foods they should be eating and what they shouldn’t be. There is only so much the government can do; people know that smoking will kill you and there are numerous campaigns to get people to stop smoking but the consumer still does not listen to this and continues to smoke.

I think that manufactures should promote healthy living as a responsibility but it would be unfair to hold them responsible for the obesity in this country. The only way to completely stop people from making bad lifestyle choices would be to take away the choices and leave them with nothing but the healthy option. With the amount of unhealthy products this would just not be possible. 

Another option that could be explored would be to stop the advertising of unhealthy products like chocolates and sweets as when it is in everyone’s faces it is hard to resist temptation. For some families the issue is money. It is a lot more expensive to lead a healthy lifestyle of eating fruits, vegetables and fresh meats than it is to eat processed foods and snacks. Is it too much to ask the government to reduce the price of these foods to make leading a healthy lifestyle attainable for the majority of people?

This is an issue that clearly needs to be addressed as obesity is such a problem but the question is who should be addressing this problem? Please comment and let me know your views.

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