Health Official wants to outlaw ice cream vans
According to an article on Times Online, a health official in Britain is hoping to get ice cream vans outlawed due to how unhealthy ice cream is for children.
Yeah, that’s going to go over well.
FOR 60 years the tinny jingle of Greensleeves that announced the arrival of the ice-cream van has been an indelible memory of childhood, but that sound may soon be removed from suburban streets. Health lobbyists have decided that ice-creams are too much of a danger to children’s health.
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Local authorities have in recent weeks banned ice-cream vans from using pay-and-display parking spaces and set up “ice-cream-free”exclusion zones around busy shopping streets. Newham council, in east London, informed vendors last month that it would fine van owners up to £80 if they used pay-and-display bays. Greenwich council, in southeast London, has banned the vans from its streets altogether, while in Scotland, West Dunbartonshire council has introduced an exclusion zone around schools for vans.
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One dietitian told The Times that a ban on ice-cream vans near schools would be a draconian policy that may drive children to buy even less healthy foods at nearby shops.
Catherine Collins, the chief dietitian at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, south London, said: “This is the kind of blanket ban that gives the health lobby a bad name. A healthy diet can factor in a sugary treat such as an ice-cream. It is the frequency of that treat that is an issue. Most choices from an ice-cream van would provide fewer calories and fat compared to a free choice from a newsagent.”
Sounds great to me. How about you also ban candy bars. Oh, and get rid of chocolate milk and coke. Better start serving boiled carrots and tomatoes for lunch in the cafeteria, wouldn’t want kids to have any fat.
I think it’s safe to say that just about every non-English kid in the world is for the moment very glad that things are so.
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POSTED IN: General stupidity
1 opinion for Health Official wants to outlaw ice cream vans
Jane
May 13, 2006 at 6:27 pm
I remember visiting England in the summer of 67 when was I was 5 and vividly recall the sounds of the ice cream trucks, where I lived in the USA there was no such thing. As you say in the UK, what a wanker to even suggest a crazy idea.
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