Again... no data to support that... a lot of common doctors just end up supporting a lot of wives tales because they can't read up on EVERYTHING.  Even when the scientific evidence is so strongly in the opposite direction.

People want to eat unhealthy.  The side effect of that is... Obesity.  Therefore people want to be obese.

It becomes an addiction... sure?  I don't see what that changes.   You can break out of an addiction if you want to... but for most people it's too uncomfortable and they'd rather stay addicted.  It's not there aren't any number of groups and programs dedicated to helping people.

and no.  Taxing cigarettes is not a good idea.

You get a few people to quit, and doom the rest to further poverty.

Outside which, think about it this way.  Instead of a tax on junk food.  Would you be for a tax on the obese?

It would be EXACTLY the same thing... except only targeting those who have a problem with junk food, instead of everybody who even likes to have a bag of potato chips once a month.  That would seem... extremely unfair to you wouldn't it?

Essentially a bunch of other people have to pay because some people over eat by a gigantic amount and we just don't like how it sounds having  a "Fat tax".  (Not all people are fat... but medical history can sort it out pretty well.

Anything to cut down on fat people is good in my book.

Put tax on junk food, and ban overweight people from entering junk food restaurants.

Yes, we've improved our farming methods but we've never directly changed the DNA of our crops ever before. This is such a new technology that we just don't the effects (good or bad) GM produce will have long term. To just go with it, is a bit risky. And even the ways we farm now aren't perfect. Irrigation uses too much water in some areas, as it conflicts with growing industrial uses. While with fertiliser, why not just use dung?. Just as effective as chemicals but it don't pollute the water or our food. But until we know if GM affects us in any bad ways, i can't agree with it . And one final thing about GM, will we even know what they changed? Food corporations aren't very transparent as it is, do we want them changing the characteristics of our food? 

 Here is a article~http://rense.com/general86/doct.htm

and heres a video, enjoy!~http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7DqaJ3QgHU

So I talked to 3 separate doctors about salt reducing heart disease and they all looked at me like I was crazy. They told me, what I told you, that salt increased blood pressure by diluting the blood with water. This makes the heart work harder on a daily basis, and makes it more prone to Heart Failure, and Heart Disease.

If you want to reduce youy odds of heart disease, jog.

Also, just something I learned from a few courses I've taken in environmental science. Don't believe news articles online, especially when they don't site the original journal article (like your links). News agency's often twist the truth. Heck I just asked for a 3 day ban because I had to finish a few assignments, one was a media critique. The article I found, sourced the original articles, and comepletly twisted it around. The article was about how Global Warming Models are becoming really accurate, and the news article was about how they were completly wrong, and global warming is a hoax. Plus in the comments section of his article, half the people believed him.

My advice, if you don't believe me, is to go to your doctor and ask. Go to multiple doctors if you have to, or a nutritionist. Nutritionists especially are responsible for knowing up to date values for nutrients, and doctors know quite a bit too.

If you want to read up on this stuff yourself though, don't read it on news articles. Go to a Medical Journal and look up actual research. Don't take someone else word for it.

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So I'm going to end this with the US, and Canadian Medical Accociations both recommend a diet of 1,500mg of salt a day. I'll believe them over any news article. I think it's you who believe in the wives tale told in the news atm.

Easily done with small doorways

All you need to know how to do is read a scinetific report.  It all checks out.

it is mostly personal responsibilities....

even if they ban those stuff... just like you said, they will taste better, then people would eat it more if they dont have good personal control of themselves.

promote exercise and good diet is what they should be promoting

This is a joke, right?

You have ALL the control over what you eat, considering you don't need to drink pop (I rarely do), and you don't need to eat fast food (I rarely do).

I'll look into Medical Journals in Canada to finish this debate later. However I did just talk to 3 Doctors, and some medical staff where I work (I work as a secretary at a General Practitioners office, however it's a big place). I think they are less likely to be convinced by "wives tales" then you would be.

If you could show me a journal from either USA's or Canada's Medical association (not a press release, the actual Journal, from a database), then I would give your stance a second thought.

Actually, you know what, I just took 5 minutes to look for a Medical Journal Article, and I immediatly found one which devalidates your claims.

You probably can't access the page because I used my schools resources, but here is the link

I bolded the important point

Shaking Up the Salt Debate
 Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter29. 8 (Oct 2011): 1-3

Headnote

Conflicting findings confuse consumers. What should you do now?

Consumers worried about dietary sodium and who are watching their salt intake might find their blood pressure rising over a recent flurry of apparently conflicting studies. The ink was hardly dry on a review headlined as questioning the association between salt and heart disease when another new study again fingered salt as a killer.

First, a systematic analysis of the scientific evidence for the Cochrane Review concluded, "Giving advice on cutting down on the amount of salt has no clear benefits in terms of likelihood of dying or experiencing cardiovascular disease." Based on data from six clinical trials totaling some 6,000 adults with normal or high blood pressure, the review found no clear evidence that reducing salt intake to lower dietary sodium cuts the risk of death from heart disease or any other cause in people with normal or high blood pressure. A Cochrane press release flatly summarized, "Cutting down on salt does not reduce your chance of dying."

Overall, those who reduced their salt intake did see a lower risk of cardiovascular events, but the difference wasn't statistically significant. Lower salt consumption was also linked to a small reduction in blood pressure. One trial found that cutting down on salt was actually linked to a greater risk of dying among 341 patients with congestive heart failure.

Writing in the American Journal of Hypertension, Rod S. Taylor, PhD, of Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Exeter in England, and colleagues explained their review: "Our estimates of benefits from dietary salt restriction are consistent with the predicted small effects on clinical events attributable to the small blood pressure reduction achieved." A previous Cochrane Review had found salt reduction does lower blood pressure, but only an average 1.1/0.6 mm Hg.

Even that link was recently challenged by a controversial Belgian study (see the August 2011 Health & Nutrition Letter) reporting that, among participants initially without high blood pressure, there was no association between sodium levels and risk of developing the condition.

The American Heart Association responded to both studies by saying that it's sticking to its advice to slash sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams daily or less. A spokesperson added, "Reducing sodium now - even for people who have normal blood pressure - can reap enormous long-term benefits."

And a second analysis of the Cochrane Review data, published only weeks later in The Lancet, claimed that the original findings were "incorrect." The re-analysis found that a reduction of 2,000 milligrams of daily salt intake - 800 milligrams of sodium - would lead to a 20% drop in the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Even the authors of the original Cochrane analysis seemed to distance themselves from the headlines over their findings. Taylor cautioned, "The important thing to note is that our results don't say that asking people to reduce their salt intake is not a good thing for their health, but rather giving advice on reducing salt alone is not enough."

Indeed, those headlines ("Putting Down the Salt Shaker May Not Help the Heart") were followed almost immediately by the publication of a large population-based study linking high sodium intake to greater risk of death from all causes. Quanhe Yang, PhD, of the CDC, and colleagues analyzed data on 12,267 adults who reported one day's diet in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Each 1,000-milligram daily increase in sodium intake was linked to a 20% greater risk of all-cause mortality.

An earlier NHANES analysis had found only an insignificant association between sodium and cardiovascular death. This study, however, had a longer follow-up - nearly 15 years - and incorporated a validated method developed by the National Cancer Institute to estimate the usual intakes of sodium and potassium.

How to make sense of all these dueling salt studies? Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, director of Tufts' HNRCA Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, advises, "Mean change in blood pressure is not what is important; what is important is whether an individual keeps their blood pressure in a normal range. For many people cutting sodium intake will have a significant effect, without side effects that may occur with antihypertensive drugs.

"Hence, if someone is told they have high blood pressure, the first thing they should do is cut their sodium intake and have it re-checked by their doctor. If that does not get them into the normal range they should talk to a dietitian to ensure they are actually cutting their sodium intake, make appropriate changes, and then have their blood pressure re-checked. It is easy to miss hidden sodium in common foods. If they still have elevated blood pressure they should then discuss other options with their doctor."

The CDC study also spotlighted the potential importance of dietary potassium as a counterweight to sodium. Each 1,000-milligram increase in potassium intake was associated with a 20% lower mortality risk, and higher potassium was linked to lower rates of cardiovascular and heart-disease death. Moreover, a high ratio of sodium to potassium intake was connected to higher mortality risk.

Yang and colleagues concluded, "Public health recommendations should emphasize simultaneous reduction in sodium intake and increase in potassium intake."

But Tufts' Lichtenstein cautions, "You can't just go with the ratio. There's no data to show that not cutting sodium while taking a potassium pill to improve the ratio is equivalent to cutting sodium."

You can, however, cut back on processed foods - the leading source of dietary sodium - and eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, which are excellent sources of potassium. (See box.) That's a health-savvy approach regardless of how the science shakes out.

TO learn Munt: American Journal of Hypertension, August 2011 ; abstract at . Archives of Internal Medicine, July 11, 2011 ; abstract at .