There's a huge variation in how bad McDonald's food is wrt obesity, if you look at calories versus satiety. Probably the worst are sugary soft drinks and milkshakes. Potato fries are quite bad. Hamburgers are okayish. Salads are okay.
I disagree - I was trying to provide a counter example to your statement on the lack of a contribution of ignorance to addiction. I think most addicts are well aware of the negative effects of their addiction at a conscious level and at the very least, if asked if their addiction was harmful, would reply "Well yea a bit" or "Well yea it could be" - people with drinking problems don't live in a happy go lucky land where they think everything is a-okay, they are coping and trying to survive. Most are quite aware that their habit is destructive but either don't see another way to move forward or endow a lack of personal strength with all the guilt of their habit - "If I could stop I would, but I'm too weak."
So I think mentioning that people are generally aware of the bad side effects of junk food isn't helpful - some people indulge due to perceived financial pressures (especially time pressures) others because of the short term pleasure- "Everything is going to hell - at least I can enjoy this milkshake and forget about things for a while." Additionally you have just plain old cravings and other factors.
I agree that the obesity epidemic isn't caused by a lack of information - so I think your point is important, but I think it's also important to realize that addictive substances almost never have that lack of information. Booze and cigarettes both tend to come with really heavy warnings about side effects but those warnings don't really have a noticeable effect.
Forcing manufacturers to put those warnings on products is essentially a big cop out by the government to avoid taking any real action.
Honestly - I can't blame anybody who could be found lurking, let alone posting on hackers news to think there's no way that this isn't common sense. However, it's not. It's really, unfortunately, very far from it in the U.S.
I now cannot easily find it (at least in a brief search on Google) because of recent bullshit regarding the keywords, but a few years back, there was a medical case that briefly made news. Woman in her thirties, not mentally deficient (by any diagnosis anyways), job holding, etc - was hospitalized at near death from a variety of issues that had gradually become quite severe.
Cause of the issues? She'd, by her, family, and friends accounts, not drank plain water in years, pushing near a decade. The majority of her fluid intake, that entire time, had been Coors Light (sparingly sodas, other sugary/alcoholic drinks that weren't plain water). Her justification as to why she had no idea this could cause any bodily harm is because it was "light"
It's bad. Truthfully, I'm happy for you that you get to live a life where you don't know/haven't been exposed to how bad. But, it's bad and I don't see it getting better any time soon.
"2013 nationally representative phone survey of about 2000 subjects showed that one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health, whereas two-thirds considered FF not good. Even over two-thirds of weekly FF consumers (47% of the total population) thought FF not good."
There's a person out there who thinks it's a perfectly healthy way of life to consume beer as their only fluid intake. Every day. For years. I guess you really need the context of the article - the main concern of it was really highlighting the fact that they weren't aware only drinking beer could been even remotely harmful to somebody, specifically because it had "light" in the name. Like, even if it had nothing to do with her being hospitalized. Not an argument as to whether or not doing so/having the choice to is wrong - simply that the fact a beverage, alcoholic nonetheless, could not be even slightly bad for the human body, because it had "light" in the name...
I know that may seem like satire to us - but this person was completely serious. Or is there something about your comment that I'm missing?
I'm suggesting that the story is missing very important pieces or possibly not true at all.
(And if it didn't actually harm her, was she even wrong to think a light beer was safe to drink? And by that I mean safe in the amount she drank, not some strawman about it being impossible to harm a human ever in any quantity. Note that not even water passes that strawman test.)
I don't think the obesity epidemic is from lack of information.