Do you have freedom to eat whatever you want? Maybe. Just like you have freedom to smoke, with a whole lot of exceptions.
Confectionery markers say they are worried that the march of a ‘super-nanny state’ will trample all over them in the quest to blame everything for obesity except the people who eat too much. They are concerned people who eat candy will be vilified, like smokers. Smokers, of course, have no rights to speak of and society is okay with that, because ‘everyone else’ has to pay for their health care. Can candy be similarly impugned in a modern capitalist society that embraces freedom?
Capitalism is, of course, the great myth of America. When over 50% of all wealth is controlled by the government you can’t really be capitalist. In reality, America has slid again and is now down to 18th worldwide in economic freedom, measured as freedom to compete, voluntary exchange, the security of private property and personal choice. Hong Kong, owned by communist China, ironically tops the list. Even Canada, regarded by Americans as highly taxed and more socially authoritarian, ranks fifth according to the report, using data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Given the lack of economic freedom and the rise of social authoritarianism, which Richard Cope, director of insight trends at market analysts Mintel called a ‘super-nanny state’ when discussing future trends with Oliver Nieburg, they worry candy could become the ‘new tobacco’ as regulators clamp down on unhealthy eating – and it makes some sense to be nervous. Tobacco went from being denied as a risk to being accepted as a risk to being blamed for every disease people got, even if they never smoked. Heck, we have a culture where “third hand smoke” is taken seriously as a risk – if someone gets lung cancer and is around anyone who smoked, maybe they got lung cancer from particulate matter that jumped from smoking-infected clothes to lungs and caused cancer. It’s so ridiculous I am surprised Rachel Carson did not mention it in “Silent Spring”. Once the cultural juggernaut gets rolling, it is hard to stop.
Is there hope for candy companies? Sure, they can re-position themselves as ‘functional foods’ and use science to do it.
A candy company could segue from chocolate to a gum that excretes ‘fragrance modules’ through the skin during perspiration, for example – perfume that can be renewed using food. Or create other items that change flavors and avoid the traditional candy stigma.
Or there is always the chance the public will stop blaming Big Gulps and spoons for making people fat and just accept that a world of freedom includes the freedom to be stupid about how much to eat. The solution is not to over-regulate what people eat because society is underwriting health care, it’s to stop taking over more financial responsibility from the public.