Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

[Q]: The internet is fertile ground for the mosaic of allegiances out of which teens build identity. Young people - at least weird young people, at very least weird young girls - are often eager to announce themselves . In lieu of a strong self-concept, the young build themselves out of a mosaic of allegiances . The online world is fertile ground for these . Tumblr, Twitter and 4chan, for example, are full of young people pledging fervent allegiance to a favorite fan culture, a political movement or a self-diagnosis, with all the rights, privileges, and rivalries that implies . Some of these will be important parts of a person's identity for life . Others will mortify them within a year . At that age, it can be very, very hard to tell which will be which . Building a self-concept means staking your claim for an audience, however small . I'm sure kids still write private stuff . But it's hard when you are young and lonely - no matter how many fandoms you join- to resist a readily- available audience that doubles as a support group . I wouldn't have been able to, I think : I wrote letters , but if there had been Tumblr back then , I would have been on it like scarves on Sherlock . The support of the invisible masses can be incredibly positive . For teens who are isolated physically or emotionally, the internet might provide the first glimmer of understanding that there's nothing actually wrong with them . It can be a way to connect with other people, to build support systems to which you don't have access in your offline life, a way to live and explore an identity that you might have to keep hidden or secret for your own protection . But there can also be pitfalls . Sometimes, when you're trying to figure out who you are and what you believe, you test out a lot of convictions . (I had an"I hate feminists because they get mad when men hold doors for them" phase, for example .) Once you've made those statements in public , it's harder to pull up, to nix one bit of the person you've created from scratch and go exploring down a different route . You've already told Tumblr that you are definitely, really a wolf with wings ; you've argued in favor of Otherkin rights and awareness ; you've become a leader of the Otherkin community . Or worse, you've helped your 4chan buddies dox a female game developer and your rape-threat tweets are screencapped and re-tweeted all over the internet . You've pledged allegiance , and everyone saw you do it . Now, when someone challenges you, you have to double down . The danger of overcommitting to passing thoughts by making them public isn't just a pitfall for teens . Adults do it all the time  - they make an offhanded comment and then make it worse with a defensive non-apology, or complain about an offhanded comment and set off the outrage machine . But the teen years are an identities factory, churning out new products right and left . You try out more opinions and self-concepts , and you're much more susceptible to peer pressure . It's perfect lab conditions for getting locked into an idea of yourself that would have otherwise been ephemeral . I'm not saying we should keep teenagers off the internet . Teens are the internet's beating heart , and they always have been ; an internet without teens doesn't bear thinking about . Besides ,  young people who are marginalized, or confused, or in any way lonely need to see that there is a whole world they can connect to- that there are people who share their problems, or maybe that their idiosyncrasies aren't problems at all . In an ideal world we'd keep adults off the internet instead, to preserve it as a space of identity experimentation for the people who really need that . Given that adults are unlikely to accept this idea , maybe we can all go back to using cute handles like LadyBloodrayne instead of our real names all the time . (I don't know, I was a goth .) If she embarrasses you , ditch her for TitaniaDarkwing! If she gets you in trouble , switch to EldritchAngel! Actually, don't : I like that one, and I'm keeping it . At any rate, I hope that young people - at least lonely, weird young people, at very least lonely weird young girls - occasionally resist some of their urges for public self-declaration . I hope they're writing emails to friends, even ones they've never met in person . In my ideal world they'd even take up writing letters again . Cobbling together an identity is a fraught, uncertain, often very retroactively embarrassing pursuit . I hope that the young weirdos of today can be kind enough to their future selves to draw a decorous veil over some of that floundering . At least until 20 years in the future, when it becomes funny again .
[A]: In an ideal world we'd keep adults off the internet instead, to preserve it as a space of identity experimentation for the people who really need that


[Q]: The Observer view on our health and the sugar-peddling food industry. The London Eye, a landmark since the Millennium, welcomed the first day of a new sponsor yesterday . Coca-Cola plans to play "an even greater part in future moments of happiness and celebration in the capital", according to Jon Woods, general manager of Coca-Cola UK and Ireland . It's ironic that the arrival of the red and white trademark colours of a global drink renowned, in its original form, for providing a shocking nine spoonfuls of sugar per 330ml can, comes at the end of a week in which, as in every week, 500 children received hospital treatment for dental decay , and there have been a stream of warnings about the health of the nation . We are swallowing far more sugar, salt and fat than is good for us- or the public purse . One warning came last Thursday when On Rock or Sand: Firm Foundations for Britain's Future was published, edited by John Sentamu, archbishop of York . It tackles a range of issues spawned by a low-wage economy and refers to the current epidemic of obesity that, for the first time in many decades, means that some children may live shorter lives than their parents . On Rock or Sand rightly points out that "choice" in diet is complex . It is influenced by income, class, culture and societal pressure among myriad other drivers, not least the seductive practices of the marketplace in disguising what goes into processed food and employing the hard sell in honeyed words that are particularly effective on children . Low-cost food and medical progress have ensured longer lives but decades with a long-term condition can also bring misery . The book quotes Department of Health figures that show 62% of adults and 28% of children are overweight or obese . The health problems this spawns include type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease, between them costing NHS England more than? 5bn a year . Last Wednesday, Andy Burnham, Labour shadow health secretary, launched Labour's public health strategy . It served up even scarier statistics . Unless the rise in obesity is reversed , the cost to the NHS of diabetes alone will rise from ? 10bn a year to an unsustainable ? 17bn a year by 2035 . While the World Health Organisation recommends that 5% of our food energy should come from sugar , children are consuming triple that amount . Further bad news came from the Youth Sport Trust, in its Unlocking Potential report . Only 21% of boys and 16% of girls are exercising sufficiently . Physical education lessons have slumped below the miserly two hours a week set by the previous Labour government . The trust is rightly calling for five hours of physical activity a week in state schools to match that offered by private schools . Eating too much and doing too little may be a personal "choice" for some , but it's one the nation can ill-afford . So what's to be done? The first is to show common sense . It is incredible that Merlin Entertainments should consider Coca-Cola a suitable sponsor for the London Eye . As this paper reports, John Middleton, vice-president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, says:"Coca-Cola is the flagship for sugar marketing and therefore the flagship for rotten teeth and diabetes." The second imperative is for government to wake up to the scale of the health disaster on its doorstep . In February 2010, David Cameron laid out his vision for "a new age of government" . "If you combine this very simple, very conservative thought - go with the grain of human nature- with all the advances in behavioural economics," he said,"I think we can achieve a real increase in wellbeing... without necessarily having to spend a lot of money." Money has certainly been tight even as public health issues, supporting improved wellbeing, have disastrously dropped off the agenda, issues such as plain packages for cigarettes, minimum pricing on alcohol and an end to selling sports fields . In 2013-14, the NHS budget was over ? 95bn, compared with only ? 1.8 bn allocated to Public Health England to promote "wellness" . The lack of investment in prevention, married to politicians' fear of the charge of "uber-interference" and "the nanny state", means that multinationals have too little restraint . We accept the so-called nanny state edicts on seat belts, smoking and drink , so why can't the state take a much greater role in improving the food that is sold to us and marketed to our children? Andy Burnham calls this "finger wagging" . On the contrary ,  it is lifesaving . It is welcome that Burnham has promised that Labour will legislate to reduce the sugar, fat and salt in foods sold to children . Such steps require rigour in the face of food industry claims that it's difficult to differentiate between "family foods" . The "responsibility deal" in which businesses voluntarily take action to improve public health hasn't produced many results . Last week, for instance, Asda promised to reduce 22% of added sugar in some 26 of its own brand drinks, amounting to a reduction of a staggering 3.25bn calories . However ,  Professor Graham MacGregor of Action on Sugar says that only reveals the scale of what remains to be done . Little bits of action are no substitute for sugar reduction mandated by government policy . As Burnham correctly said last week:"For change to work in a market context, all players need to be following the same rules." Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, has warned that a 20% tax on sugar in fizzy drinks may be required . It makes sense . Advertising to children is another issue requiring intervention . Promoting unhealthy products is restricted on children's television but it is unfettered online in "advergames" and between 8pm and 9pm on television when, according to Malcolm Clark of the lobbying group, the Children's Food Campaign (CFC), ads are a junk food paradise . Burnham intends to ask the committee on advertising practice and the Advertising Standards Authority how children can be better protected . That is a cop-out . The CFC, backed by the British Heart Foundation, has rightly proposed a body independent from the advertising industry to monitor and regulate marketing to children and tougher enforcements . Managing diet, taking exercise and aiming for fitness can't be directly stipulated in law . Parents, government, the community and the commercial sector all play a part in taking responsibility . However ,  the balance of power is skewed against the ordinary citizen, particularly those penalised by profound health inequalities, and towards those with profit in mind . The state has to play a far more dynamic role than Labour envisages or the coalition provides, to ensure that what does us good, at a price we can afford, becomes the established framework for a healthy life .
[A]: The health problems this spawns include type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease, between them costing NHS England more than? 5bn a year


[Q]: Forget the GST on food. Abbott needs to present a new 'grand bargain' to the nation. The problem with not applying the GST to fresh food is that rich people aren't paying GST on fresh food . Taxing the purchase of fresh food is estimated to provide an additional $6bn in government revenue each year . For a federal government with a revenue problem, it must be infuriating to forego billions from people who can fairly easily afford to pay . The problem with applying the GST to fresh food is that poor people would be paying GST on fresh food . Households in the lowest 20% of income earners pay almost two and a half times more GST, as a percentage of income, than households in the highest 20% . For a federal government with a now-cemented reputation for unfairness, it would be foolhardy to make life even more expensive for those who can least afford to pay . Sure, the government could provide GST relief through compensation payments to low-income people , but such payments are inefficient at meeting the actual cost of the tax . They also create another ongoing obligation on the public purse . Some people might consider this a political conundrum, but not some of the fearless members of the Abbott government . Senators Ian Macdonald and Dean Smith, MP Dan Tehan, and trade minister Andrew Robb are rushing forth to call for changes to the rate and base of the GST, including applying the tax to fresh food . The father of Australia's GST, John Howard, has opined in recent years that it was a "pity" Labor did not support the GST on fresh food in 1999 . Now others are stepping forward with proposals . Unsurprisingly, business groups want to increase the GST and decrease company tax . The Australia Institute has argued the government could lessen the regressive impact of the GST by expanding the base to include private education and private healthcare- services largely consumed by those on higher incomes  - which it estimates would raise an additional $2.3bn a year . It's an intriguing idea with political appeal , but there are potential budgetary disincentives if the tax pushes people off private services back on to free government services . All this public speculation is leading to the impression that the Abbott government does not have control of the GST agenda . The implications are dreadful for the Coalition . Just ask Campbell Newman and Mike Baird how delighted they are to campaign in a climate of GST hypotheticals . Some conservative commentators have claimed that all the Abbott government needs to do to stem the freefall in the polls is to get its messaging right . Surely in 2015, they say, a better sales pitch - and a fresh-faced young assistant treasurer in Josh Frydenberg - will turn around the public's opinion of the government and its budget . What these folks misunderstand is that good policy makes good politics and no policy makes terrible politics . Right now, the Abbott government has no overarching policy agenda, no coherent narrative, no holistic approach to the nation's current budgetary challenges . Rather ,  it has surprise measures (reintroduction of fuel indexation), broken promises (cuts to the ABC, health, education and the pension), wild new spending commitments (PPL), counter- productive new taxes (GP co-payment), and random thought-bubbles of the kind currently proffered by minister Robb and co . Where to start in solving the problem? First ,  instead of pushing a lot of random levers in its budget and hoping some of them work, the government needs to put forward a "grand bargain" to the people of Australia : fixing our budget means we need to fix our complicated, inefficient federation . We need to work out who is going to do what to whom, and who is going to pay for it . It also means fixing our tax system, not just tinkering with high-income levies or raising the GST by a couple of per cent . In short ,  the federation and tax reform white papers should come out as soon as possible . Frankly, these should have come out much, much earlier . What were Coalition members doing as they sat on the Opposition benches waiting to win the "unloseable election"? Secondly, as part of this "grand bargain", the government needs to get real about ending the age of entitlement . Right now, it is just code for punishing the poor and protecting the rich . The tax system doesn't just have to be fair ; it has to be seen to be fair . Asking the lowest income people to pay GST on fresh food while continuing to give high-income superannuants and investment- property owners massive tax concessions would keep the age of entitlement alive - for those at the top of the income scales .
[A]:
For a federal government with a now-cemented reputation for unfairness, it would be foolhardy to make life even more expensive for those who can least afford to pay such payments are inefficient at meeting the actual cost of the tax