I completley dissagree. I grew up overwight and it didn't change until I was in my 20s. There was no education on how to eat healthy, or how to make food taste good without tons of fat. When I leared that then I was able to change.
Also discouraging it is all about controll. NEVER EVER EVER give up ANY freedom you have to a government, EVER.
Also you never even addresed my point about it being like Cigarrettes, its the same thing they are taxed and smokers continue to smoke and the rate of new smokers is going up. Taxes do not help.
Hey i have an idea lets make what a tiny group of people think is unhealthy foods cost 10x more so that fat people will be poor as well, instead of addressing the real issue, hey if they are poor they will not be eating as much, MALNUTRITION is just as bad as obesity.
What SHOULD be done? We should be TEACHING these obese people to EAT RIGHT instead of eating that McDonalds burger everyday or box of doughnuts or wtf ever...
Ignorance is the main issue here.. not obesity..
P.S. Pizza is IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM a vegetable........
I am completely against this. Perhaps it is because I consume on average somewhere between 4000-5000 calories a day minimum, and I am in great shape (Though I am an athlete training daily).
However, this Healthcare bill passing or not dictates whether it will happen or not. If the government is in effect forcing you to buy Healthcare or pay a fine, why not force you to buy healthy food or pay a fine? Actually the latter sounds a lot less extreme in my opinion.
How about instead of taxing the consumer for purchasing fattening foods, fine the producer for manufacturing and distributing them?
False. They can tell people what to eat if their eating habits directly influence their need of government money. If you dont want them to tax you bc you are fat, then how about they just take obesity off the list of things that grant government healthcare money/facilities/services. Either way, its about stopping the waste of government money on something so ridiculous as unhealthy food choices.
Much the same with cigarettes and alcohol right? Everyone loves how that works out unless you do neither of them.
And what about that person who had an accident whilst out rock climbing, cycling, base jumping? Surely they are also taking tax payers money from any health service you might have that they could have also avoided. How dare they risk an injury and spend my tax money helping them recover.
Where would you like to stop?
It's no more discouraging than tobacco and alcohol taxes and I wouldn't consider the taxes on them to be "controlling" compared to the regulations on those substances. There's no freedoms being given up, you're simply penalized a little bit more for making less than optimum choices regarding consumption.
How old are you? I'm 24 now and when I was growing up we had enough education that we knew fruits and veges were healthier than mcdonalds and that those things would keep you skinny and fit. Granted theres better ways of controlling your diet now but the education was there.
As for your cigarrettes vs food argument, it's not the same thing. The reason being that healthy vs unhealthy food has a plethora of alternatives. If one food is expensive, you have many alternatives for cheaper food. if one food is unhealthy, you have many alternatives to healthy food. it just so happens that the cheaper food happens to be the unhealthy food. when you are running low on a budget, you make alternatives in your diet by getting the cheaper unhealthy food. cigs have no alternatives. there's no cheaper thing way to get your nicotine fix, so you build your budget around that.
The problem with something like this is that healthy food won't just magically drop in price. The basic cost of living would go up. Some families can only afford this unhealthy food like McDonalds or whatever because it's tremendously cheaper.
Well in most cases when a Tax is introduced it is just another tool to earn Money to fill the government coffers. Politicians sell it to you so you think this is a good thing and in some cases it even would be but in the end its all about the Money. I think they should lower the costs of healthy food instead of rise the cost of unhealthy food. Imo that would make much more sense. But in that case the Government wouldnt earn cash they need for their golden waterpipes and luxury behavior.
A Example:
In Germany a Cartax was introduced. The money should be used to fix streets and signs. Would be a good idea but: most of our streets are crap cause the money went elsewere.
then the Ecotax was introduced raising the price per litre of oil and gas by quit a bit - to fix streets and signs. Still the Streets look like crap and the Price of gasoline raised skyhigh. (80% of 1 euro is ecotax)
Now Politicians think about a Car toll - to fix those streets and signs. So you pay for something wich should have been fixed with another something you payed for....
Imo another tax is a bad idea... there should be other ways to improve the health of the People. making Food more expansive would hurt poor people who likes to eat something special every now and then.
Last edited by Uriel; 2012-02-04 at 11:45 PM.
The problem I have with this is it doesn't really solve anything. Chances are healthy food will still be more expensive. Poor people tend to be fatter simply because its the least expensive food and these people don't have the money. Also junk food is much easier to acquire. Fast food is quick and easy and for parents with a tight schedule this is the best time saver/money saver there is. I would propose using the money gained through the "fat tax" to subsidize the price of healthy foods to make them a more attractive choice to the poor.
By allowing a govenment to influance your behavor they are infringing on one of the most funadmental rights we have, the right to choose how we live. Its insidious to watch how it happens, it starts small, with well we should tax this, then its well we shold restrict where this can be done then its we should ban this.