531colin wrote:If you were working, and had cycled 5 miles to get to the hospital, and had 5 miles to cycle back to work, with the foreman running a stopwatch on how long you were away, a can of coke and a packet of crisps might have to be your lunch.
I'm not a betting man but I'm thinking it would attract long odds the two ladies in question were cycling anywhere or that they were in any rush to get where they were going.
If they were on their lunch break as you suggest,they could've brought their lunch with them,healthy or otherwise and it would have been a lot cheaper if they'd made a couple of sandwiches and an apple at home before they left.
Nobody is actually forced to buy the stuff, its simply offered for sale. You or I might think the 2 fat people made a wrong choice, but its their choice to make
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Of course it's their choice and I didn't imply that it wasn't but the hospital should IMO,be promoting healthy eating which it isn't with junk food vending machines in waiting rooms.
We do live in a democracy (you may think a democracy of sorts, and I might agree)....but freedom of choice is a cornerstone
Did I claim otherwise?
If you ban vending machines in hospitals "for my own good", its just a short step to banning cycling on the roads....its for your own safety, you know....just like h*lm*t compulsion.
Slippery slope, I fear
That is a very tenuous link IMO.
Cycling is a healthy means of transport and h*lm*t compulsion has been proven to reduce cycling wherever it's been implemented
OTOH if the only food that's available at any given time is junk,junk will be consumed,however if only healthy food is available.....
It's the same at supermarket checkouts.
Re Jamie Oliver, my recollection is that the parents were handing burgers to the kids over the fence, but it might have been David Cameron in drag, I suppose.
My recollection is that,that has been reported and was only a few "free thinking parents" exercising their democratic choice,nor was it connected to the Jamie Oliver healthy eating in schools campaign which was rejected by the Cameron government.
However if parents feel the need to feed their children burgers over the school fence it only illustrates how bad the problem is!
We are the fatest nation in Europe with all the health implications attached to that statistic,it didn't happen by chance or by freedom of choice,as all other European nations AFAIA have the same freedom of choice.....
EDITED for typos