Some commentators have pointed out that it's not necessarily possible to fully choose your food because of the power of supermarkets and the availability of fresh or locally produced food. This is a valid point, but to be honest most people can find most types of food available in their local vicinity. Food freedom is not a reason to criticize supermarkets. There are other reasons to do so.

 

In an ideal world, someone's food choices would effect only themselves, and their families. In such a world, if you choose to live off McDonald's, then the health outcome from that would only effect yourself and your family. That's the outcome of the choices that you make.

 

Unfortunately, today's world is far more interconnected than that. The reality is that we all have to pay health insurance to cover the health outcomes of everyone. Even if you eat well, to some extent your health insurance premium will increase to cover the risks of the overall population. Hence as America becomes fatter, health insurance premiums for everyone will increase to cover that risk.

 

This is true in countries with universal health care too. Often this cost of healthcare is not covered by tax increases, but more rationing of care and a reduction in the availability of service. 

 

I do not believe that any society today is ready to deny care or put people on a waiting list solely because they have made bad health choices. Therefore, we must ask ourselves the question: if people's health choices impact all of us, do we all have the right to contribute to those health choices?

 

If the answer is yes, and we as a society act through government, then the government has a responsibility to intervene in people's health choices. That would mean the government having the responsibility to make foods, such as soda, that make us ill, a more difficult choice. It means pricing in the increased health risk of junk food into the price of that food.

 

We need as a society to radically change how food is priced, moving from subsidizing the raw ingredients of junk food, such as industrially produced corn and soya, to ensuring that fresh unprocessed or lightly processed foods are an economically wise choice.

 

Arguably, this economically wise choice should also make supermarkets, restaurants and cafés want to offer a good selection of healthy foods, which, as pointed out previously, is not always the case today.

 

The other argument against this of course is that the state does not often make good choices, especially where food is concerned. In the past, the state has often shown a preference for protecting food manufacturers and "BigAg" over and above the health of citizens. Yet, the government knows that healthcare is going to be a bigger problem than job changes through restrictions on BigAg's activities.

 

The reaction to New Yorks' soda restriction shows that society as a whole is far from accepting this necessity, but it will have to in order to prevent a wholesale breakdown in the health care system in the near future.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimharmer/3716622030