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The Government Should Not Have a Say

in Our Diets
Health has become the central concern of diets in decades, due to obesity
and sub-health have been widespread, especially in western countries. A
certain amount of countries government has already been working on
citizens diet. However, should people allow the governments to have a say
in even adjust their diet? Citizens must refuse these scorns of their selfcontrol from governments.
Several governments interfered the meals directly, which did not get positive
commentary. The methods are providing and regulating meals for particular
groups of people, such as first school students and labors in certain working
places, for example, civil servants. Korean governments decided to provide
directly student lunch supplies by Institutional Foodservice, up to high
school. Nevertheless, the lunch provided by Korean government food
institutions was obviously not satisfying students (table 1). The children
supported by Institutional Foodservice were thought to eat lunches with
excitement among friends. However, the drawing of children supported by
Food Delivery did not show many accompanying persons. According to a
previous study, children eating alone ate less-balanced meals, mainly only
with staple dishes. They were also less likely to have an appetite before
meals, to enjoy eating their meals, and to be healthy. A previous study also

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indicated that the children eating meals with friends or family were more
satisfied than those eating meals alone. (Kwon, Lee and Yoon, 2010) In
addition, not only the suggested nutrition sheets from the Korean
government were not obeyed by the Institutional Foodservice, but this
problem also existed in other countries .

Table 1:1) P-value by Chi-square test

2)

Others included 'the food which a mother made' and 'no preference'.

Table 2: 1) The number was 142, one less than the number in the result of daily intake, because
one child supported by Food Delivery had not eaten lunch at all during the data collection
period.

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P-value by ANOVA

abc

Different superscript in the same row mean significant difference among groups by Duncan's

multiple range test at = 0.05.

The aim of the governments that participated in adjustment of citizens diet
was ideal. However, as other governments, Korean government did not
succeed in their rewardless lunch project. Children did not have their lunch in
the ideal situation assumed by Korean government. The majority of the
children, ranging from 89% of those supported by Food Delivery to 100% of
those supported by Meal Box Delivery, consumed less energy than EER. The
results also showed inadequate intake of all the examined nutrients; of
particular concern was the extremely low intake of calcium. At most, only
12% of the children supported by Meal Box Delivery consumed the amount of
EAR or more for calcium. The percentage of the children with inadequate
daily intake of protein was the lowest among all the examined nutrients.
Additionally, the percentage of the children with inadequate daily intake of
vitamin C was significantly different among the four groups by meal support
method.(Kwon, Lee and Yoon, 2010) The fault in case of Korean Institutional
Foodservice was fallacious expectation of childrens reactions. Most children
were disappointed with their food due to poor variety, though there are
supposed to be 8 totally different dishes each day (Kwon, Lee and Yoon,
2010). Likewise, most food provided by governments is given too much
expectation.

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The adjustments in diets behaviours from government are considered as

discrimination to obesity people. Health care staffs, even doctors, do not
treat overweight people as same as others; they make everything dominant
and compulsory. Overweight regulation in certain regions is treated in
paternalism in health department, even hospital. (Roussev, 2014) The cost
of treatment for overweight people is rising at the same time. Those
governments that have involved in WHOs health proposal are literally
setting a barrier between overweight regulation and others. (Roussev, 2014)
The only method that makes the progress seems reasonable to public is to
be against a certain group, which is obesity people in this cases. Are there
any warrants for governments to do so? Slim people look nicer. Being less
efficient is not always connected to obesity directly. Furthermore, ones
appearance does not fully depend on that persons acquired behaviours.
Genetic obesity and obesity caused by individual differences of efficiency of
digestion are quite common phenomena, particularly in western countries.
Human right advocates point governments are acting invasively nd
autocratically. There is no difference between aggression and setting
restrictions on peoples freedom of gourmet. The health of the worker is the
axis of the whole problem, round which all else turns: it is for effective work
we want our children well-born, carefully nurtured in childhood, educated in
school, and developed in brain and brawn both. (Cameron- Smith, 2014)
According to Cameron-Smith, Australian government regards obesity as an
obstacle on their way of development. This pattern of thinking is reflected
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from all governments over the world. Besides insulting obesities, there is no
logic in setting an upright restriction against purchasing food. Without
doubt, the purpose of the autocratic invasion of dinner table of every family
is definitely not upright.
Instead of interfering from governments, people should be aware of their
own diets. The amounts of obesity population in several regions, such as
North America and Europe, have been at a tipping point for a long time.
About 13% children of 5 to 17 years old are obese, another 20% percent- are
overweight currently in Canada (Ogilvie and Eggleton 2016). Stances of
governments in diet control should be observer and recorder. Once a
common health awareness was built in a society, there would be literally
nothing for its government to do.
In conclusion, the government should not have a say in our diets. The person
who is responsible for ones health statuses is himself or herself.
Governments jobs are to do the survey, research and analysis, indeed to
find out the regional health scales, then propose citizens to follow the
suggested diets and suggest obesity population to achieve the healthy life
style. People who do not obey the suggested diets and suffer from diseases
caused by the disobediences of suggested diets deserve the health problems
they meet and have the responsibility to fix those problems.

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References:
Cameron-Smith, Alexander. "Raphael Cilento's Empire: Diet, Health and Government
between Australia and the Colonial Pacific." Journal of Australian Studies 38.1
(2014): 103-18. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.
http://journals1.scholarsportal.info/details/14443058/v38i0001/103_rcedhabaatcp.x
ml - EN0010
Kwon, Sooyoun . Lee, Kiwon. Yoon Jihyun .Nutrition Research and Practicte. 2010
Dec; 4(6): 515521 (2010): 28 Dec. Web. 11 Aug 2016.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3029793/
Ogilvie, Kelvin, Kenneth, Chair. Eggleton, Art, P.C. Deputy Chair. Obesity in CANADA:
A Whole-of-Society Approach for a Healthier Canada. Government of Canada
Publication (2016). Web. 12 Aug 2016.
http://publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?
url=http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/sen/yc17-0/YC17-0-421-2eng.pdf
Roussev, Leslie. "The WHO's crash diet: the role of governments in the international
obesity crisis and why the global strategy falls short." International Lawyer Summer
2014: 51+. LegalTrac. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.queensu.ca/ps/i.do?id=GALE
%7CA412981824&sid=summon&v=2.1&u=queensulaw&it=r&p=LT&sw=w&asid=b
29bc05e7a396fa2c4e8901aba87c33b

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