Norway's new health minister Sylvi Listhaug has caused controversy by saying people should be allowed to smoke, drink, and eat "as much as they want".
The comments came on her fourth day on the job in the cabinet of Norway's right-leaning government.
A populist politician with anti-immigration views, Ms Listhaug was welcomed back into Norway's cabinet on Friday, a little over a year after she was forced to resign over comments she made about terrorism.
"My starting point for this with public health is very simple," she told Norwegian broadcaster NRK in an interview on Monday.
"I do not plan to be the moral police, and will not tell people how to live their lives, but I intend to help people get information that forms the basis for making choices.
"People should be allowed to smoke, drink, and eat as much red meat as much as they want. The authorities may like to inform, but people know pretty much what is healthy and what is not healthy, I think."
The health minister is a former smoker herself but said she only smokes socially now.
Ms Listhaug went on to tell the broadcaster that many smokers "feel like pariahs".
"They almost feel they have to hide away, and I think that's stupid. Although smoking is not good, because it is harmful, adults have to decide for themselves what they do," she said.
"The only thing we as governments are to do is to provide information so that people can make informed choices. That is why we should, among other things, [devise] a tobacco strategy now, which will help prevent young people from starting to smoke and often want to make more adults quit."
Ms Listhaung was also ridiculed in 2016 after she jumped off a rescue boat into the Mediterranean to see it from a refugee's "perspective".
Following her comments on Monday, Norway's Cancer Society's secretary general Anne Lise said her remarks were harmful.
Current Norwegian health minister Sylvi Listhaug pictured in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016. Source: Twitter 'KarlEldar'
"Many will adhere to what she says," Ms Ryel told NRK.
"That is to say, public health [has been] set back many decades."
Ms Listhaung stepped down as justice minister in March last year after she accused the opposition Labour Party putting "terrorists' rights" before national security.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg reinstated her last week as minister for the elderly and public health.
Despite her year-long absence from the cabinet, Ms Listahug remained in the public eye, proposing her party back a move to impose tougher prison terms for crimes committed in areas with high crime rates just before she was reinstated.
