Lucy Mangan, writing in Saturday's Guardian newspaper, laments the Agency's initiative to have calorie counts printed next to dishes on the menus of restaurants, canteens and takeaways. Lucy thinks we have deprived her of her right not to face up to the fact that some things might not be very good for you.
It's strange, isn't it, how what seems to the Agency to be a helpful initiative to allow people to make an informed choice about what they eat, can also be viewed as a bad move? Interestingly, Lucy is not accusing the FSA of promoting the 'Nanny State'. She makes some interesting observations about the law of unintended consequences – that the Agency may increase resistance among those who would normally follow good advice because we are taking away ‘the few tiny pockets of willed ignorance that survive in this hyperinformative age’.
We know that telling people what to do doesn't work, but by giving people information we provide opportunities to make informed decisions about what to eat. But this is where we enter complex territory and that's why we have joined forces with the Economic and Social Research Council to fund work to understand better the dietary decisions people make. Through better understanding of when and where dietary health related decisions fit into people's lives we might stand a better chance of conveying that information in a helpful way.
I'm with Lucy in wanting to have the odd guilt-free indulgence. Regular readers will remember that I have stood up in the past for enjoying food. But there is still a serious point. Many people do want to lose weight and watch what they eat. It's the Agency's job to help them do that, and making sure that people have information on the calorie content of food that they eat away from home is one aspect of that work.
It's strange, isn't it, how what seems to the Agency to be a helpful initiative to allow people to make an informed choice about what they eat, can also be viewed as a bad move? Interestingly, Lucy is not accusing the FSA of promoting the 'Nanny State'. She makes some interesting observations about the law of unintended consequences – that the Agency may increase resistance among those who would normally follow good advice because we are taking away ‘the few tiny pockets of willed ignorance that survive in this hyperinformative age’.
We know that telling people what to do doesn't work, but by giving people information we provide opportunities to make informed decisions about what to eat. But this is where we enter complex territory and that's why we have joined forces with the Economic and Social Research Council to fund work to understand better the dietary decisions people make. Through better understanding of when and where dietary health related decisions fit into people's lives we might stand a better chance of conveying that information in a helpful way.
I'm with Lucy in wanting to have the odd guilt-free indulgence. Regular readers will remember that I have stood up in the past for enjoying food. But there is still a serious point. Many people do want to lose weight and watch what they eat. It's the Agency's job to help them do that, and making sure that people have information on the calorie content of food that they eat away from home is one aspect of that work.