Food

The Government Doesn't Know What's Best for You. Why Let It Decide What You Should Eat?

Governments are moving beyond mere advice and trying to regulate people's diets more directly.

Jeffrey A. Singer | 10.12.2026 12:45 PM

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Governments have spent decades issuing dietary guidelines, sponsoring public health campaigns, and encouraging consumers to cut back on sugary, salty, and fatty foods. Now they're moving beyond persuasion and adopting more aggressive measures to influence what people eat.

In an October 8 article titled "Nagging People to Eat Healthily Does Not Work," The Economist describes a growing international movement to tax unhealthy foods, restrict advertising, require warning labels, and regulate how supermarkets display and promote their products. Such measures are needed, officials argue, because the earlier approach failed to curb rising obesity rates.

The Economist notes, for example, that from 1992 through 2020 Britain adopted 14 national strategies to reduce obesity, comprising 689 individual policies. Most of these sought to educate consumers about healthy eating or improve access to healthier foods. Yet England's obesity rate doubled over roughly the same period.

The article treats the rise in obesity as evidence that these efforts failed, and its framing implies that governments need to go further. But the fact that obesity increased despite these initiatives doesn't tell us whether they were effective. (After all, obesity might have increased even faster without them.) More importantly, it doesn't follow that more intrusive interventions will improve health outcomes.

The Economist article cites a study that attributes Mexico's reductions in calories, added sugar, and saturated fat sold to mandatory warning labels. But these measures reflect changes in food purchases and product formulations, not demonstrated improvements in health. The article provides no evidence that the labeling requirements have reduced obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or mortality.

And who decides which foods should carry warning labels, face higher taxes, or be restricted in where retailers can display them? The government has a poor track record in providing nutritional advice.

Terence Kealey, Bautista Vivanco, and I wrote a Cato........

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