Correction: the government makes more money to treat your fatass when you finally have a heart attack or stroke.
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Exactly. Inasmuch as businesses can keep the flavor and reduce the lard/sugar content, they will, 'cause they'll have lower taxes on their product. It's a stick to beat the manufacturer with, not the consumer.
Odds are, standard industry practice would be to keep their classics (read:lard) and test healthier substitutes. When the consumers by and large accept the substitute, they'd probably drop the overtaxed classic.
edited 27th Sep '11 12:38:52 PM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.I know tons of people(at least nationwide, not necessarily here) would cry foul about that idea, but...
THEY ALREADY DO IT TO CIGARETTES AND I SURVIVE JUST FINE. LONG AS WE'RE TAXING THE UNHOLY FUCK OUT OF OTHER THINGS DEEMED UNHEALTHY FOR THE COMMUNITY DUE TO MEDICAL COSTS, LET'S AT LEAST BE FAIR ABOUT IT!
It's like sweets and fatty foods are "Freedom to eat this unhealthy shit" but it's ok to tax cigarettes 37 percent in California because the people who don't smoke could give a shit, it ain't one of their sacred cows getting made into.. hamburger. The government gets on their soapbox and essentially says they have sin taxes because they want to discourage the behavior, but when there aren't as many smokers, they lower those taxes to get more smokers, and thus extra revenue. Let's do the same shit to fast food, something much more epidemic than smoking and much more dangerous, if the ratios of heart disease to lung cancer are any indication.
edited 27th Sep '11 12:42:13 PM by Barkey
Indeed. Legalizing unhealthy things? Sure, that's your choice. But don't expect it to be cheap. Somebody's gotta pay when we have to dig you out of the gutter and fix you up later on...
I am now known as Flyboy.![]()
It shouldn't be taxed punitively either. On this particular thing, it wouldn't be a sin tax to fleece the consumer: It'd be a non-coercive way of getting manufacturers to make healthier processed food ASAP.
The market would ensure that healthier processed food would become dominant as soon as they're taxed differentially. Overall, the consumer would be eating the similar food a similar prices, except now it'd have less salt, fat and sugar on it.
Poor people penny-pinch to get by, and they have the largest rates of obesity, so a small tax difference could ensure that healthy foods become top dog.
edited 27th Sep '11 12:48:04 PM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.Sin taxes for the purposes of social engineering are bad. A tax on unhealthy habits because, well, we have to foot the bill for the healthcare later on? That makes sense. It's probably difficult to distinguish between the two, unless we're differentiating between the two by how high the tax is.
I am now known as Flyboy.Dear god, some of these solutions are silly.
You can't just "fix" the problem with regualtions, laws, and such. It's inherent in the system: Americans want cheap and fast food because everyone has no time.
Now, the problem is that, in order to make the food cheap, fast food companies heavily process food to be effiecent, taking away flavour and nutrients. So they beef it up with chemicals, sugars, and fats.
However, even if you eat well, the exercise problem owes to the sedentary lifestyle. It's worse in A Merica, however, because people drive everywhere - at least in NYC or London people walk places, even if it's only to the bus stop or subway station (and getting out of the Washington DC subways is pretty good exercise).
These are not "sins" it's just many people don't know any other way.
edited 27th Sep '11 1:05:27 PM by Erock
If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.Heres something I heard and its that all this fast food contributes to bigger boob growth in women.I also here that the food we eat can also make girls hit puberty earlier than before.That would explain alot in my situation because I believe I starting getting breasts when I was nine.
http://blog.scanavert.com/fast-food-is-a-fast-track-to-puberty-for-a-7-year-old.html
http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff5/african-american-girls-reach-puberty-faster-than-others/
It seems for African American women like myself we have been hitting puberty faster than any other race in America.
edited 27th Sep '11 1:24:35 PM by joyflower
And then you wonder why we don't like it.
I am now known as Flyboy.This is something improved public transportation would help, I think. Moving from a suburb in Colorado to Seattle meant I walked a lot more. Sure, part of that was because everything is closer in a city vs. a suburb, but I also have to walk 2 or 3 blocks to the bus stop vs. fifteen feet to my garage to sit in the car. Hell, limiting car dependency in general (with city design, shopping centers, etc) would help get people walking around more. And for people who are full-on obese, just walking would make a HUGE difference in their physical fitness.
Who builds troper pages?I don't know about anyone else, but I abhorred being required to take P.E. in high school. There's just something about being treated like dirt by someone who is worth less than dirt while doing something about as useful as shit that just didn't click with a few unusual students like myself. And don't even get me stared on Comprehensive Health and Diversity Studies. Fuck mandatory social improvement programs.
Personally, I don't see obesity as that much of a threat. Contrary to some impressions of America, the U.S. doesn't solely consist of a population of Fat Bastards, and for those that are it's a personal problem.
They never travel alone.Although I am not American, I am Clinically Obese myself. In my case taxing food would have little effect as I probably eat somewhat healthier than the skinnier people I work with, my obesity seems to be caused by lack of exercise (I have little time or inclination for this and am a massive recluse) and the quantity of food I eat (I like salad, I just eat a load of it).
I personally don't see anything wrong with obesity. Yes I will have health problems in the future and a lower life expectancy but really that is my business and I will never amount to anything anyway (I am also a pessimist).
Why is it a problem? Because obesity raises the general cost of healthcare...
I am now known as Flyboy.This is true, but I would imagine that there is a much higher occurrence rate of medical treatment related to obesity versus sports injuries. Also, with relation to sports injuries, it would be more about better safety rules...
I am now known as Flyboy.Quick question: Are we still using that Body-Weight Index thing to measure obesity? The one that says that if you're short and muscular it means you're obese? Because I recall that being a huge problem with calculating things, since America values a large, muscular body when it comes to athletics, ie. football players, wrestlers, boxers, etc.
I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

^
Just make it so anything above the calorie per unit value has an extra "luxury" tax on it.
Then you have normal foods as well as increasingly taxed luxury foods that you can still get, and the government makes more money. Problem solved.