I think people are afraid of a slippery slope. Legislation is almost always done in a slippery slope manner - at first you limit things a little and wait until people accept it. After a while you limit some more, then some more and then some more.

You can do whatever you want with sugar, but it's not going to solve the obesity problem. Not only are carbs one of the few macro nutrients we can digest, they're also in pretty much everything.

I don't know about this. For example in many countries around the world cigarettes are now put in unattractive packages but not banned outright.

To get very meta, the argument that regulation is a slippery slope, is itself a slippery slope. As in, I think the fear that government is going to continually encroach upon our freedoms until we live in a police state is misguided. This is the argument that big industry uses to exploit workers, cheat on taxes, spew their externalities over the environment, etc etc.

What we should really aim for is a democracy in which well-minded and level headed politicians work to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Perverse incentives aside, I think if that were really the goal, you'd get some level of regulatory balance that was neither too loose nor too restrictive.

What do you think will solve the obesity problem? People weren't obese like they are now 100 years ago. Something must have changed

People stopped being poor. It's difficult to become obese when you simply don't have enough food. The solution to the problem isn't going to be in the past, because we want people to live a better life and not worse.

I think what will solve the obesity problem is education. The basic ideas of nutrition (in terms of physics and biology) should be taught to everyone. It should not be possible for someone to graduate high school and find the basics of a nutritional label difficult to understand.

This should also be coupled with a better cultural attitude. People should feel encouraged to try to lose weight when they're obese, rather than told some form of "healthy at every size" nonsense or be made fun of when they are at the gym. It should be seen as an ailment that can be improved rather than something shameful. If you have a broken arm, then you're not told that it's fine to have a broken arm, nor are you made fun of for trying to get your broken arm fixed.

I used to be overweight and I understood that it was bad, but it was difficult to try to improve it. The people around you notice that you're doing things differently and you'll hear snide remarks or encouragement, but this leads to expectations, so you try to hide it instead. That way nobody expects anything.

Serving sizes have increased. Fat has been removed from a lot of dairy foods and replaced with extra carbohydrates. Sugar is unnecessarily added to bread. People work a lot and commute a lot and don't feel like putting in time to cook when they can just stop by the drive thru. A lot of cities are very car-centric and people walk less or bike less. We are very stressed and eating a pizza feels good man, a slight relief from our terrible lives. Our jobs are very sedentary, take 8 hours of our time, drive home, eat, go to sleep, wake up, do it again.

Snacks are mostly carbohydrates: bagels, donuts, chips, chocolate, granolas. It's hard to eat healthy, you have to make it yourself, but that costs time and effort, which you don't have much of because we work a lot.

It takes a conscious effort to say no to all of these delicious things, and that's hard to sustain.

I think the environment we've created is setting us up for failure in the sense that the easiest and most available options for us in food and jobs, are not good for us in the long run.

I'm gonna go take a walk.