How long will it be before we ban fast food?

You can't have that. You're far too fat.

Soon, it seems, we will no longer be able to do anything that’s bad for us. A hospital chief in Cambridgeshire has said that he would like to ban fast food from the hospital site, but is currently “contractually shackled” to provide it. Once free of the contract however (not until 2024), the hospitals will remove anything deemed too “unhealthy” despite a high level of customer demand.

At the moment the hospital offers a number of healthy food options to staff, visitors and patients using the food court and currently people are able to choose from a wide range of food options, from various reports it seems that the hospital’s Burger King outlet is the most popular of food choices available.

The hospital boss Dr McNeil has said that he wants to send a clear message on healthy lifestyle and healthy eating, and has said the hospital is in discussions to remove the Burger King from the food court.

While we have gotten used to the idea of being told whether or not we can smoke in public it seems we need to get used to being told what we can and cannot be allow to eat in certain public places as well. Could this be the first step in “unhealthy” foods (arguably any food eaten in excess) being banned from general accessibility for the public?

While this may prove healthier for patients it reinforces the already well-established fear that we are becoming a society that finds it easier to ban things than educate people of their detrimental effects, ultimately removing their right to a freedom of choice in what they eat.

We need to look past the short term effects if the ban to how it will affect our society. No one wants to live in a country in which people have decisions made for them and are not given the trust and freedom to make the choice themselves.

The key point here is that forcing people to be healthy won’t make them healthy. Removing just one option which is perceived to be worse than others will only encourage the take up of faux-healthy options which the hospital will never be able to remove entirely, while still leaving people ignorant of the health risks associated with certain foods and lifestyles.

As is always the way, prohibition is never the answer and will only leave people ignorant of the facts and how to look after themselves, ever more dependant on the state making decisions for them. Health through education and improved long term results should be the looked to over impulse banning and the instant gratification that accompanies it.