To think you can't ban food on trains?

[poshme]

In today's times (sorry rubbish at links) there's an article saying the outgoing chief medical officer wants to ban food on trains unless for medical reasons.
AIBU to think this is completely stupid & unworkable?
Apparently it's because we're snacking too much & too many children are obese.

I regularly catch trains with my kids- usually a 3-4 hr journey. Invariably it's a meal time, and part of passing the time is eating a packed meal. Yes- it's not the healthiest meal in the world & includes crisps & chocolate, but as part of a normal diet it's fine.

My kids are not overweight. In fact they're generally underweight.

If this is implemented they're never be able to enforce it surely?

Pretty sure the local buses here have said no hot food or drinks for years, drinks for health and safety reasons and food because it smells; but the longest journey you can take is around 30 minutes. Trains are a different beast in my opinion, there's bins onboard and as people have said, some journeys are a lot longer. People will just snack at home anyway, I don't think the issue is as simple as making it shameful and restricting where in public you can do it.

I think it's stupid... I'm not overweight and I like to eat on the train. Why should I be punished?

There are posters on the tube saying dont eat smelly food on the train. Completely unenforceable and not sure too many people take notice of them.
Not sure who is going to act as the food police either. My train journey to work is 30-40 min and i occassionally have a drink but rarely feel the need to eat on the train. However the trains entire journey is probably 3-4 hours (i don't actually know as I've never needed to go the entire length if the line).....so , assuming food police were employed, do they look at your ticket to see where you boarded and the judge at what station you may open your bag of crisps, or start your sandwich? .... and at what point in a 3 hour journey it stops being "local" and starts being a long journey?

Anyone who has been on the top deck of a London bus at school chucking out time knows that eating KFC or Morleys (other fried chicken franchises are also available ) is not just allowed but pretty much universal.

Whoever mentioned the cinema is absolutely right, all cinemas have turned into feeding places.

Ban food there as well, while we're at it.

I haven't Rtft, but I read this about banning eating on public transport on the Guardian website. My point was that I regularly eat my breakfast (dry cereal or a brioche roll or similar) on the bus on the way to work, then don't get chance to eat again until I am on the bus home again 14 hours later. I am often eating chips/ mcdonalds/ not very healthy supermarket sandwiches on the way home because that is what is available at that time of night in my city. I am also sometimes eating crisps and chocolate biscuits on the bus home at 9am, which makes me look like a terrible person who eats crap for breakfast, but that is after a night shift when there wasn't chance to eat anything. I read that exceptions would be made for people who had to eat for medical reasons. How would they define that? Would the fact that I might actually pass out from having worked 13hrs + without anything to eat count as a medical reason to be allowed to eat?

I eat a sandwich on the 20 minute train ride home from work one night per week. Doing so means that I get to band practice on time. The alternative is that I try to eat whilst driving to the practice, which is dangerous, that I eat at home and turn up late, or that I don't eat until 10pm, giving me a migraine.

if stupid laws like this come in, I will disobey them. I believe that it's called "civil disobedience".

The article I read didn’t say to ban food, it said to ban snacks. There’s a difference between a meal and a snack, having a sandwich at lunchtime isn’t the issue it’s sitting there grazing on crisps and sweets with a bottle of coke for the entire duration that’s the problem.

Ds isn't over weight but we have to work hard to ensure he has healthy food ( and fortunately he is not a fussy eater) and access to places he can exercise.
What would help him is facilities for people like him so he can go swimming or to playgrounds or places he can run around safely. Or just facilities and support for parents/carers so he is not stuck at home or at activities that revolve around eating.
That means those in power spending money on disabled people which of course isn't going to happen.

What would be a lot better would be to make sure it's possible to buy a healthy snack at the train station.

There’s a difference between a meal and a snack, having a sandwich at lunchtime isn’t the issue it’s sitting there grazing on crisps and sweets with a bottle of coke for the entire duration that’s the problem.

...but who adjudicates at what point a snack becomes a meal?

I also think policy-makers need to ask parents of obese kids why they are obese and then try and put in measures to tackle that. There can often be a bit of an us and them mentality.

You also just can’t get away from inequality and poverty being a driving factor. It is just a lot easier for me as a comfortably off middle class type to keep my children healthy. I can afford good food and sporting activities, my children have a garden they can run around in, the local state school offers loads of sport because the parents demand it etc. It would be far harder to have the active lifestyle we do if I lived in a city-centre flat with no nearby parks and with limited funds.

The trouble is a lot of people these days have a lifestyle where they are out and about a lot. I understand the principle of what she is saying - 'stop people grabbing unhealthy stuff to eat on the train and make them sit down to a proper meal instead' but this requires a much bigger lifestyle change and I would suggest that just banning food on public transport is unlikely to help. Also, there is much of the year when you do not want to sit outside to eat, so when you have packed yourself a healthy packed lunch the train is often one of the few comfortable places to eat it! Not to mention the fact that we are not banning eating in cars, so there is a whole swathe of non-public-transport-using society who get no negative effect from this.

Dame Sally does know that most workplaces have done away with the tea trolley doesn't she?

A lot of people have a coffee and a sandwich on the tube because they are spending their lunch break traveling to another appointment, or have worked through lunch so that they can leave to collect children.

I have breakfast on the train because I have to drop DC off before getting to the station. Just like thousands of other commuters.

Not a fibrillating clue.

Although I agree that there seems to be a 'snacking' culture that did not exist when I was a child, or when my DC were young, this is unenforceable. I personally, rarely ate on a train, except, of course, for those long distance trains with a buffet or trolley service. I also dislike other people's smelly food near to me.
But there you go!. It is always 'other' people's smelly food. Not mine.
So, although in my first sentence, I mentioned a 'snacking' culture, how do you define a 'snack'. How do you define 'healthy' or not.
Also, how to define a 'local' train or bus.
If I get on the train close to London, it's local, but those who got on a couple of hours ago, it's fine to eat?
Who would monitor this, especially as commuter trains and buses are often very crowded.
The real solution is to educate people on better food choices.

There's going to have to be some exceptions for the longer train journeys. I don't want to be on a train with a bunch of hangry passengers. I've seen the Train to Busan.

It's a ridiculous concept on every level.

As others have said, eating breakfast and sometimes packed lunch is often essential as part of my working day. I use buses for local commuting in a semi rural area and trains for further afield travel on a daily basis, this includes my office commute and travel within the community I do, as my job involves home visits and meetings in community settings. Journeys can be anything from 30 mins to 4 hours one way but the length of the journey isn't always what it relevant - it's the window of opportunity to actually eat which might only fall during that journey!

On days when I haven't taken a packed lunch to do this I have invariably ended up buying something far less healthy to eat based on the limited options available and/or been absolutely starving by the time I could eat again so then over indulged. So if the concern is health, that is completely counter productive.

Absolutely no chance of it stopping teenagers from eating and drinking crap either - they'll just either have it before or after getting on the bus or flout the rule completely, as I often see happening with e-cigs.

Thats not to say we sit back and do nothing about childhood obesity but this is no solution. It's complete and utter guff.

Its almost unusual for a British family not to have junk food from the major outlets that are at every corner of public transport - train stations, service stations, airports. Everywhere you turn junk aimed at you.

Sunshineandgin so if I eat a packed lunch of sandwiches, carrot sticks, crisps & a kitkat that's ok, but if I eat a kitkat & crisps on their own it's not?

maybe there should be scales as you step on the bus and if you're overweight you have to get off and jog alongside whilst the chosen ones on the bus throw pies at you.
FFS who is this woman?

Most local bus companies already ban the consumption of food and drink, don't they?

Until there is an entire shift in this country away from the long hours commuter culture, I really don't see that people are realistically going to stop eating on trains, nor eating convenience foods.

It's perfectly possible for most healthy people to not eat for 4 hours

I do, but then I scarf down my snack of fruit the moment I get on the bus because I’ve been working on my feet for four hours moving around and have burned off whatever meal I had before those four hours. My bus ride is 25 minutes after I leave work and then about 7 minutes walk to my son’s school and another 7 minutes home. By time we get home and I make food for us, it’s closer to 5 hours without food if I didn’t have something on the bus. Not exactly healthy not to eat if you have been actively moving around for hours.

Not even sure most nutritionist would advise not eating for over four hours.

@Chouetted Local trains are the ones that usually have a maximum journey time of 2 hours and are not large intercity trains going from north to south on 7-8 hr trips. My local trains run between East Anglia and London/ south coast . Most people's journeys are not more than an hour.

I think it's best to take the essence of this proposal rather than a literal one.

Many people buy a snack at the station for themselves or their kids- crisps, sweets , buns etc - which they really don't need. Partly I think they eat out of boredom on the journey.

I think the idea of not snacking is a great one but I don't think banning food on local trains would have that much impact. Maybe some health posters at stations with a 'Do you really need that snack now?' might help! Like the ones we see for 'smoking kills'.

I undertake a long train journey on occasion, there is a 'local' train as part of that long journey. Does that mean I would not be allowed to eat on that section on the journey but I can on the rest?

Worraliberty fair point about 'passing the time' but generally I travel with the kids over a meal time- deliberately so that the eating of the meal uses up some time.