Posted on 05/18/2012 5:33:32 AM PDT by Abathar
INDIANAPOLIS -- Health experts have been trying to combat obesity in America for years and have recently suggested a new way to solve the growing problem.
A new study suggests that imposing a fat tax on unhealthy food and drinks could help slim down expanding waistlines.
According to reports, more than 60 percent of Americans are overweight. Under the tax, a $4 cheeseburger would cost an extra 80 cents, RTV6's Stacia Matthews reported.
Some Hoosiers found the proposed fat tax hard to swallow.
"I don't think we should tax people and the way they run their lives,” one man said.
Others said a fat tax is palatable.
"I'd pay 20 percent. It's worth it,” one woman said. "I would eat a lot more healthy just to save more money.”
Researchers said a fat tax could drop obesity rates by 3.5 percent and prevent 2,700 heart-related deaths a year. The study also urged subsidies for healthier foods and veggies to make them more affordable.
(Excerpt) Read more at theindychannel.com ...
Mike
Of course... increasing numbers of people are more than happy to have Daddy Government guiding every aspect of their lives.
sorry about the multiple posts had problems with preview, mod can you delete these?
Yes, let's destroy the “fat industry” the way the libs nearly destroyed Yacht building (remember that one folks?). I can think of no better way to guarantee a double dip recession.
Here in Idaho one of our major crops is sugar beets and we have a plant to process them into sugar in Nampa, and one just over the border in Nyssa. If you want to hurt the local economy put a tax on sugar. It's going to be felt all the way back to the farmers.
The same is true for fast food. Put a tax on hamburgers and the demand for beef will fall and the ranchers will suffer. Bear in mind one of the age groups that currently has the hardest time finding work are whippersnappers just out of high-school many of whom fulfill the tired cliche and work fast food.
All the fat tax will do is make a lot of hard working folks unemployed and hungry.
"I'd pay 20 percent. It's worth it,” one woman said. "I would eat a lot more healthy just to save more money.”
Fine then make the tax only apply to this dumb arse women and all the other that think it's "palatable". But leave the rest of us the h--l alone. By the way, think of what she is saying, "I would eat a lot more healthy just to save more money.” which translates too "I'm a fat slob with no self control who needs the government to come in and give me a financial incentive to eat healthy"
“I’d pay 20 percent. It’s worth it,” one woman said. “I would eat a lot more healthy just to save more money.”
...this same idiot is saying, “hey, if paying 20% more doesn’t stop me, you can beat me”.
Well, that's the kind of study I detest: studies like that go into great care to show correlations without ever establishing causation, and they run with it. Sorry, but showing a correlation between higher cigarette taxes and decreased smoking shows nothing: there has been a lot of effort to get people to quit smoking, from commercials telling how bad it is, to limits on places where people can light up. To say that the decrease is because of "smoking taxes" and then to apply the same thinking to obesity is just plain irresponsible.
What about the increasingly sedentary lifestyle? What about the "food pyramid" that recommends so many servings of so many foods that trying to follow it could easily make someone fat? What about the nanny statism that drives people to do just the opposite of what the nanny statists want, just out of rebellion against those who would control lives?
It's pretty much a lie that "unhealthy" foods are cheaper than "healthy" foods. It is actually cheaper to buy the ingredients and make meals from scratch. But it's time-consuming. Food being convenient is probably a big factor in obesity.
I doubt this Gov’t “think tank” has bothered to see what percentage of the morbidly obese population is currently on Food Stamps. People on Welfare are typically the heaviest group out there. They have no need to work - for everything is provided to them for ‘free’; and they have better medical coverage than those “fools” like us who work for a living.
Well, that's the kind of study I detest: studies like that go into great care to show correlations without ever establishing causation, and they run with it. Sorry, but showing a correlation between higher cigarette taxes and decreased smoking shows nothing: there has been a lot of effort to get people to quit smoking, from commercials telling how bad it is, to limits on places where people can light up. To say that the decrease is because of "smoking taxes" and then to apply the same thinking to obesity is just plain irresponsible.
What about the increasingly sedentary lifestyle? What about the "food pyramid" that recommends so many servings of so many foods that trying to follow it could easily make someone fat? What about the nanny statism that drives people to do just the opposite of what the nanny statists want, just out of rebellion against those who would control lives?
It's pretty much a lie that "unhealthy" foods are cheaper than "healthy" foods. It is actually cheaper to buy the ingredients and make meals from scratch. But it's time-consuming. Food being convenient is probably a big factor in obesity.
When cheeseburgers are outlawed, only outlaws will have cheeseburgers....sitting here humming “Cheeseburger in Paradise”
“You are hereby charged with gross public obesity.”
“You are hereby charged with violating the public harmony”
“you have exceeded you daily calorie allowance, excess consumption is criminally punishable.”
/s
Does this mean we will have “ice cream easies” als smoke easies.
There is no problem so intractable that it cannot be solved by the feral government sticking its hand into your pocket.
Fat people live longer during a famine. Being skinny is dangerous after a natural disaster. And for all you animal lovers out there, fat people provide more nouishment to mountain lions and grizzly bears and are easier to digest.
Fat people live longer during a famine. Being skinny is dangerous after a natural disaster. And for all you animal lovers out there, fat people provide more nouishment to mountain lions and grizzly bears and are easier to digest.
Some may think you're kidding but some serious scientists have started to corroborate the idea lately. Check out the Fathead lecture in Ted Talks.
I can picture myself making bootleg cookies at home and selling them, just like my grandma sold homemade beer during Prohibition.
Oh puleeze!
If you can't eat “healthy” with no fat tax, what makes you think you will eat “healthy” with a fat tax? After all, it's much cheaper buy your own ingredients and cook healthy food at home, and yet this woman just won't do it, even tho it's going to save her money. Most stupid idea I ever heard of.
IF it was possible to tax the Left out of our business Obesity rates would drop over a period of time to that which it was in less stressed times.
It’s the Left that creates the atmosphere of anxiety that drives people to seek comfort. Comfort NOT only in drugs, escapism of every sort, but Comfort Food as well. Most “Comfort Food” IS in the fattening category.
Drive down the stress Leftist idiocy creates in our society, and obesity will follow in it’s path just as Obesity has increased as the Leftist idiocy has increased.
It’s the same in Europe. It’s the same in any country/society the Left has maligned.
How about simply allowing health insurance companies to price their policies according to risk—including weight?
That should about solve it for everyone. Plenty of incentive for the overweight to slim down and yet the freedom for people to pay their own added healthcare costs without imposing on others—if they so choose.
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