Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle

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Anna: To be honest, I don’t think that the government should really be involved at all what health choices people make. I don’t think it’s any of the government’s business what people do with their lives, unless they’re committing a crime or not paying taxes, or that sort of thing. People should be responsible for their own health. Everybody knows that it’s not good to eat too much of the wrong things, and everybody knows that exercise is good for you. It’s their choice.

I don’t think the government telling people what to do has any effect anyway. People still do what they want to do. Look at the prohibition era in America, when the government there banned alcohol. People smuggled it in instead and still drank it in secret. Look at the high taxation in Britain on cigarettes.

The people who want to smoke still smoke. People have stopped smoking in recent years because they realise that it’s bad for your health, not because the government told them not to.

Jonathan: I think there’s a lot more that the government could do to improve people’s health. They talk about it a lot, but they don’t actually do much, do they? Why is food that is bad for you cheaper than healthy food?

The government is happy to tax alcohol and cigarettes to encourage us to have less of them. Why don’t they tax fast food, sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks as well? That would make people think a bit harder before they bought them. It’s too easy to buy chocolate bars. They’re everywhere.

And children can afford them with their pocket money. And it would make manufacturers think about making healthier snacks. And why don’t they just ban some really unhealthy food? Why have it at all? Hydrogenated fat is good for nobody.

That’s already been banned in some foods. Artificial additives added salt, sugar and sweetness in absolutely everything. Why doesn’t the government ban all of that? The food manufacturers will not make our food healthier unless we force them to do so. Food is big business.

Our health comes a poor second.

Kyle: I think the government’s role is to promote not only healthy eating, but also healthy living. I don’t know why it doesn’t educate people more about the benefits of good food and exercise. And there’s no point in the government just telling people what to do.

There should be help to encourage people to lead healthier lives. It should start at primary school, because if you start young, then good habits will be formed. For example, to say that children need an hour of exercise a day, but a lot of school kids don’t get enough exercise. Why doesn’t the government make schools responsible for this? Also, I don’t think that people know enough about how their bodies work.

If we learned at school what an amazing thing the body is, and how food and exercise affect it, then we’d all be a lot more careful, I think. And I think young children should learn to grow and cook vegetables and other healthy food at school. Why isn’t that part of the school curriculum? These things are as important as maths and English.