Big Food

New Zealand's tell-people-what-to-eat campaigners have a busy week. 

Monday, the University of Otago at Wellington hosted a one-day session on the evils of "Big Food". Stuff covers it here; David Farrar nicely critiques things.

Here's one of the Otago presenters' policy recommendations, as noted in the Stuff piece:

Gabrielle Jenkin's advice to New Zealand's policymakers:

• Ban advertising and marketing of unhealthy food.
• Improve food labelling, ideally with a "traffic light" system.
• Change planning policy so unhealthy food outlets are unable to set up near schools.
• Outlet numbers should be restricted by population size.
• Restrict unhealthy food in public institutions such as schools.
• Install more public water fountains.
• Make unhealthy food unaffordable, either by taxation or by subsidising healthy food.
• Force "Big Food" to reduce salt, fat and sugar in products.
• Restrict portion sizes, as New York tried with soft drink in 2013. 

Farrar uses the appropriate language in response.

Jenkin seems to particularly hate KFC:

Television shows such as The Biggest Loser, Downsize Me and Embarrassing Fat Bodies reinforced the personal responsibility message. "The message is ‘Get your big arse off the sofa', rather than ‘Stop the KFC opening across the road'."

However,some governments had stood up to Big Food. In Britain, manufacturers have been forced to reduce fat, sugar and salt, and New York's governor attempted to restrict portion sizes and introduce nutritional information in restaurants.

In New Zealand, politicians remained cowed by Big Food, she said. In deprived towns and suburbs, fast food outlets were so numerous as to be unavoidable.

"New Zealand is appalling. You're sniffing KFC wherever you go."

Maybe I'm weird, but I love the smell of KFC. It makes me so hungry every time I drive by one. I just wish there were one on campus.

And while you can totally get public choice models where interest groups are able to shift policy away from what the public wants, does it really seem like industry lobbying is the binding constraint here? KFC is delicious. Does it seem that likely that people who find KFC delicious would warmly welcome politicians who banned them from eating KFC? A median voter model seems by far the more plausible explanation of why KFC hasn't yet been banned here. John Key's National government campaigned against all the nanny state stuff. And while his government is happy to keep paying Otago and Auckland to churn out the 'ban stuff' studies and conferences, Key's not going to take on a new nanny initiative that doesn't have broad public support, unless it's a play to throw some support to ACT.

I wasn't at the BigFood shindig, but here are some reports from their twitter hashtag.

International collaborative action needed to restrict advertising of food to children - Tim Lobstein at #Bigfoodnz
— Cliona Ni Mhurchu (@ClionaNiMhurchu) February 16, 2014

Shocking #BigFoodNZ pic.twitter.com/mcq1mflGfu
— Carrick Graham (@CarrickGraham) February 16, 2014

Shocking #BigFoodNZ pic.twitter.com/mcq1mflGfu
— Carrick Graham (@CarrickGraham) February 16, 2014

The big anti-sugar conference is coming up at Auckland Uni on Wednesday and Thursday. I expect that the news and talk radio will be intolerable for much of the week.

Otago used to own the "ban stuff" niche; now, Auckland and Otago seem to be competing with each other to see which can be the most vocal advocates of banning stuff. Rents predict entry I suppose.