To think peoples lives are crap enough without needing the government to interfere with Meal Deals

[Jeansmeansheinz]

FFS just let people have the pleasure of a Meal Deal. I really don't need the Government telling me what I can and can't eat.

People have a choice, they can eat shit if they want.

My 20 year old ds works in a public service job. They have long stressful shifts, they are busy dealing with the public. People he works with live off crap meal deals, McDonalds. They grab what they can when they can run into a shop.

Ds also runs into a shop if he hasn’t prepared anything healthy from home, but he grabs some fruit and some unsalted nuts and water.

The government say it’s okay pack foods with fake sugars and seed oils and modified junk. So they have a fucking cheek anyway.

I almost died a few years ago, I turned my life and my families life around. We are all so much healthier. I don’t buy anything with more than one ingredient. Everything cooked from scratch. We aren’t well off but we spend far less now not buying anything processed and eat a lot better. It doesn’t take up a lot of tome
either.

I have had genetic testing after both my parents had the same cancer (one died at 40).

What changed my life was the consultant telling me “genetics hands you the loaded gun; lifestyle pulls the trigger”.

But I can’t get fired up over bloody meal deals when when so much so called “heathy food” is packed with crap too.

Eat it or don’t, it’s a choice.

Sorry but that's not really true.

You're right that how much you eat is a factor but the rest is just not true. UPF's are more damaging to your health.

Yes they should, cancelling meal deals won't solve anything though. The government need to invest properly in infrastructure and services to properly address the obesity issue; but of course they won't, they will just make gestures such as this which do fuck all.

Education of nutrition is genuinely woeful in schools, not the fault of teachers as the curriculum but this should be prioritised in the national curriculum. Yes schools can't do everything and parents need to take responsibility too, but a lot of parents don't have a clue either and pass on unhealthy habits and misguided info. The lessons could be combined with other subjects- again, this should be accounted for in the NC and not added onto teachers unsustainable current workloads.

Poverty is of course a big one and the fact that access to highly processed shit show of food is cheaper and more convenient. The answer isn't as easy as lifting people out of poverty but it would certainly help if decent foods were more accessible and if people had more time than working several jobs to make ends meet.

Cycle paths are often not extensive enough to provide a suitable alternative to driving, gyms often expensive etc- yes running is free and walking is free but it's not always easy for someone to carve out time to do so, especially if they're say a single parent who can't leave the children to head out.

Mental health support needs to improve- a lot of people who are overweight are so due to underlying issues which until they're addressed will continue to cause issues. Also applies to women being taken more seriously in healthcare, things like hormones and thyroid imbalances can cause huge issues with weight but women are too often dismissed.

Obviously loads more but yeah basically the gov won't ever do actual real investment so we will just get more of this banning certain things as a useless token.

TimetoPour
I agree with you. It's nudge theory.

Just like taking away sugary snacks and sweets at checkouts. You can still buy chocolate and sweets, but they're not there in places designed to increase consumption so you have to go to the sweets aisle.

Nobody's stopping anyone buying a bag of crisps. They're just making it cheaper and easier to have a healthy options.

Discussions about weight and food always go the same way. People moan that it impossible to eat healthy on a budget, that junk food is much cheaper and easily available etc. Then when steps are taken to make the healthy options easier and cheaper, people complain because poor them wants to be able to have a big bag of crisps and despite evidence of society being increasingly overweight (which has health implications) apparently everyone is great at making healthy nutritional choices so it's awful to make healthy options easier.

I'm overweight....I don't drink alcohol or fizzy drinks. Never eat takeaways or fast food and probably have a meal deal once or twice a year. I've got fat on delicious, home made food. Calories are calories.

A triple sandwich is nowhere near 400 calories. 550 and above. Crisps are also c. 150 and above, unless you are getting popchips/small bag of quavers/skips, which they never are in meal deals. People completely underestimate how many calories are in food. Also, zero sugar does not mean zero calorie. Tango Apple cans are sugar free, but 11 calories.

Omg 11 calories 😱

Yet @Mumtothreegirlies did specifically mention mothers being the ones to stay at home, hence the reference to returning to the 1950s.

Agree with the rest of your post.

Why is fasting or one meal on average per day an eating disorder? Are you now claiming being a healthy weight like I am is a disorder?
Who told you you need to eat 3 meals per day?
Meal deals they're not healthy, in fact, the food business is solely responsible for poisoning the nation with marketed junk.

It would be perfectly easy to make your own packed lunch too…..

Tbh there's a lot of anorexia on this thread a sandwich, snack and a drink aren't going to make anyone fat. If chocolate/cakes/actual unhealthy things were taxed or whatever that would make more sense but the first thing you attack as "unhealthy" is a meal deal 😂 just because y'all have eating disorders dosent mean you should beg for the government t enforce that on everyone else.

Not really. Maybe you don’t have stuff in the fridge. Maybe someone ate the last slice of bread. Maybe you only need lunch for one day so you don’t want to buy a whole loaf, lettuce, pack of ham etc. Maybe you don’t have time or can’t be bothered. And the main one - maybe you don’t want to eat a sweaty tasting sandwich that’s been sitting in a box all day when you can get a nice fresh tasting one from the shop.

Oh no can't be having that 😂😂

Well for a start you are not allowed to fast whilst pregnant or breastfeeding. That tells me it's not nutritionally sound.
I mean, I suppose some people will find it's good for them to skip meals, but I don't think it is something you should blanket encourage for everyone. Everyone has a slightly different way they process foods.
I did do fasting but it in my opinion is a short term way to lose weight as it made me obsessed with food and grumpy as hell.
My own weight is pretty consistent when I have time and money to eat well. I think we should be aiming for that.

There is no tax on "the good" - food is VAT free already.

We have VAT on catering (hot food, takeaways, restaurants etc) and VAT on several types of unhealthy foods such as crisps, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks, etc.

VAT on crisps and chocolate bars doesn't stop people buying them, nor does VAT on fish & chips, fast food, etc.

There’s a lot of really stupid straw men on this thread.
Thinking that banning meal deals is a useful step towards creating a less obesogenic society isn’t the same as thinking it’s going to solve the problem on its own. Just like thinking a healthy diet is a good idea isn’t the same as thinking eating a single meal deal will make you fat.

Meal deals have been available for years and most people aren’t fat. The minority who are fat are going to be fat regardless. They will just find something else to eat. Meal deals are not what made them fat to begin with! If the government wants to reduce people’s weight they’d be better off targeting alcohol consumption and subsidising gym access.

Your input has been invaluable. Thank you for those insightful words.

If you have it daily, yes it is! No one "needs" a snack, crisps arent part of a balanced diet for god sake.

Being aware of what shit you are eating and having an eating disorder are two different things. Educate yourself rather than sneer.

If governments are serious about intervention for weight loss they need to get to the route of why people eat too much, and provide publicly funded free-to-access leisure centres

I'm old enough to remember when playing fields were sold off. Leisure centres now are often crap. Thinking about easy access to exercise, especially for kids, would be good.

I guarantee energy and food price caps, along with lower housing costs would have 100% more impact than trying to restrict food.

I agree with you on this.

I used to be anorexic.
Now I have a sandwich (home made or shop bought - although I do still look at calories on the shop ones) most days
....and a kit kat most days.
and 2 other meals in the day!
I don't think I am especially unhealthy and I am not overweight

Yes it takes planning ahead, but that is possible. And lunch doesn’t have to mean a sandwich, personally I don’t even like sandwiches.

We have outdoor gyms here. They are used a bit by exercise committed but hardly overrun, the park nearer to me is pretty much left

Starting off with children exercise is better but adults need to do their part

I wfh so am able to eat well, but once a month have a London day where I leave early and am back late. I don't want to carry three meals, so get a meal deal for one of them.

I'm all for this. The profiteering shops charge £1.25 upwards for a can of drink separately, £1.20 or something for a bag of crisps. They are getting away with it because of the meal deals and I would prefer to buy only what I want at a reasonable cost and not think 'Oh, but I have to get a bag of crisps.'

Lol, it's true that no one should worry about 11 calories in a sugar free drink, it's insignificant. Though water is obviously the healthiest option.

@Screwballs did make a valid point though about a triple sandwich being 550 plus calories not 400. Not many premade sandwiches are as low as 400, and certainly no triple ones. Same with packets of crisps, most normal ones are 150 plus not 100.

We shouldn't get obsessed with calorie counting but neither should we routinely minimise the calories in things. They are clearly printed on most packaging.