NEW YORK (PNN) - September 27, 2011 - During a United Nations General Assembly summit on non-communicable diseases, - a discussion that included diet and eating habits - Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who believes he has the right to dictate social policy to New Yorkers, said that government’s highest duty is to push healthy eating.
Speaking on the government's role in diet and health last week, Bloomberg told the UN General Assembly, “There are powers only governments can exercise, policies only governments can mandate and enforce, and results only governments can achieve. To halt the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases, governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option. That is ultimately government’s highest duty.”
Bloomberg lauded the past efforts to force New Yorkers to eat what the government believes is healthy food, by refusing licenses or increasing taxes to those who don’t tow the official line.
“Collaboration across borders among national and local governments and agencies is also critical. The challenges before us are too vast and complex for individual governments to overcome alone,” Bloomberg later added.
Shortly after the address, the UN adopted a political declaration on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
Among the items included in the declaration are having governments intervene with the advertising of foods deemed unhealthy, to “promote the implementation of the WHO (World Health Organization) set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children, including foods that are high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt,” according to the document.
The political declaration also touches upon taxation of unhealthy food and intervening in it’s production itself to promote, “the development and initiate the implementation, as appropriate, of cost-effective interventions to reduce salt, sugar and saturated fats, and eliminate industrially produced trans-fats in foods, including through discouraging the production and marketing of foods that contribute to unhealthy diet.”
