PC FOOD IN IRELAND

The most basic fact about food and weight-gain is that it all depends on how much you eat, not on what you eat. You can live on a diet consisting solely of cakes and lose weight as long as you eat only 1000 calories a day of them. This basic fact seems to have escaped the attention of the Irish government -- who, like Leftists and do-gooders worldwide -- are always looking to blame problems on someone else. Fatties are fat because they eat to much and drinkers get drunk because they drink too much -- and no diversion of attention to anything else will alter that. There is NO substitute for individual responsibility and self-control. To think that there is, is chasing after rainbows. Prohibition of alcohol did not work in the USA nor will attacks on food that people like.

“Ireland, noted for fried breakfasts of epic proportions, is chewing over the possibility of a special tax on fatty foods to tackle rising obesity levels.

A proliferation of restaurants and fast-food joints during the country's celebrated "Celtic Tiger" boom of the late 1990s and an increasingly sedentary national lifestyle are among factors blamed for a rise of nearly 70 percent in the number of those overweight or obese over the last decade.

Figures earlier this year showed 14 percent of Irish men and 12 percent of Irish women were obese. Some 32 percent of Irish children were overweight and 10 percent classified obese.

News the government is eyeing high-fat snacks follows recent moves to crack down on alcohol abuse -- including a ban on pub "happy hours" -- and a national furor over plans to prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants from next January.

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It may also be of relevance to the lovers of compulsion and regulation to note that Australia has had laws since 1912 that enable the courts to order the compulsory “drying out” of alcoholics. They are “dead letter” laws -- unused because nobody wants to waste scarce medical resources on futility. You cannot MAKE people live healthy lifestyles.