Prohibition teaches nothing, and children have to learn to moderate intake

The argument

Those who oppose banning junk food for children argue that the aim is a child who can regulate their own eating, and that prohibition is a poor method of producing one. On this account the skill in question is judgement about quantity and frequency, and judgement is acquired by practice with guidance: being given an occasional treat, learning what portion is reasonable, noticing how one feels after too much, and making the choice oneself under supervision. A child who has simply never been allowed such food has had no practice at any of this, and proponents argue that they tend to meet it without any habits of moderation at exactly the point when nobody is supervising them. The second strand concerns what prohibition does to desire. Proponents argue that restriction reliably increases the appeal of what is restricted, particularly for children, and that food loaded with significance as forbidden and transgressive is more attractive than food which is simply ordinary. Secrecy follows, and with it the loss of the parental oversight that was supposed to be the point. On this account the predictable results of a ban are concealed consumption and a worse relationship with food than the one it was meant to prevent. Proponents are not arguing that nothing should be done. They support teaching children to read labels, cook and balance a diet, and they generally accept restrictions on advertising aimed at children and on what is sold in schools. Their objection is to prohibition as the instrument, on the ground that it removes the opportunity to learn the very capacity the policy is trying to protect.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Supporters of a ban argue that this overstates how much moderation children learn in an environment built to defeat it. Products are engineered for maximum consumption and advertised relentlessly, so the supervised practice described is a contest between a parent and an industry, and most families lose it. They add that the appeal of forbidden things is not a general law: children raised without sweetened drinks commonly do not acquire the taste at all, and the same objection was raised against restricting tobacco advertising, where restriction nonetheless reduced uptake rather than glamorising what it removed.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The aim is not only self-regulation but health, and a child whose health is damaged while acquiring the skill has paid too much for the lesson. [Rejecting P2] The supervised practice described is a contest between a family and an industry that formulates and advertises for maximum consumption, which most families are not placed to win. [Rejecting P3] That restriction increases appeal is not a general law: limits on tobacco advertising reduced uptake rather than glamorising what they removed, and children never given sweetened drinks commonly never acquire the taste. [Rejecting C] The premises support teaching moderation alongside restriction rather than instead of it, so the conclusion does not follow from them.