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‘Fat tax’ could save thousands each year - Diet & Nutrition - MSNBC.com
Very interesting. Who's next on the list for government control? This is just a test shot over the bow. The punchline of a joke, that three or four years down the road isn't so funny anymore.
Having incentives to eat more healthy and take care of yourself sounds like a good idea to me. And to pay more for things that you know does terrible things sounds good to me too.
Of course by the time the politicians and political interest groups get done defining what goes in which category, and who gets the cut back then I start to have a problem with it.
Just what everyone should love. Government telling people how to live their lives, even worse, what to eat! If there was not a welfare state to begin with (paying for all that healthcare) this may not have come around.
I'd be 100% against something like that in the US.
That being said, Americans are fat and getting fatter. It's gross.
I'd say the solution would be to deny gov't funding for "self-inflicted wounds" as far as medical treatment is concerned. That would mean smokers pay for their own darned lung cancer treatment, fat people pay for their own triple bypass surgery and knee replacements, and helmet-less motorcyclists pay for their own head injuries.... No, wait, they are way too valuable as organ donors to risk losing that source....
We should be a free country, but people should be free to suffer from their own bad choices.
If people want to get fat and then have me pay their medicare bills, then go ahead and tax them.
Our founding fathers would be proud. :rolleyes5cz:
My overall disgust with this issue isn't that people should be allowed to eat themselves into the physical equivalent of a hippity hop ball. Like most of you have said, it is because they are going to come up with a solution to deal with a flawed system. Socialism/ communism implodes on itself for these exact reasons. The government has to control everything it can in an attempt to make it work.
First, starting a diet has made me very calorie and fat conscience. Check out the nutritional information for 99% of the fast-food restaurants and you will find that the food is T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E for you. Most meals have 1,000-1,500 calories and 30-40 grams of fat. Subway is about the only place I "can" eat without busting the diet. There are a few others that are inbetween Subway and the McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King types but not many.
And I agree with benjay, America's fatness is gross. I think half of the problem isn't the food, it's the lack of excercise. So I think if the government is hell-bent on taxing fatty foods, then they better start giving tax breaks for people who buy bikes, treadmills, etc. If they don't, then IMO its just another way for them to tax their citizens.
There is A LOT of calories and sugar in pop, too. I think that's a problem as well, people don't think about what they drink as adding up, but it really can. You can gain lose weight by just cutting out pop, sugary juices, and alcohol from your diet.
Maybe instead of giving a tax increase on the bad stuff. Give tax breaks to those that are under a certain # on the BMI chart. Tough to do I know, but its a start.
They are going to find a reason to tax every thing more. It's not smoking and eating. Eventually it will be if you buy food that was farmed using weed killer and not natural you will pay a tax on that. They will tell us it's for the enviroment tax. It will never stop unless some normal people start being elected. The Republicans and Democrats are at fault for all of this. I used to consider my self a republican. I lean a lot further right now so I would consider myself more liberatarian. I am a registered independent now though.
The problem with that is I will never be under a certain # on the BMI chart. When I was a sophomore in HS, our wrestling program had a BM test done on each of us. For wrestling, the ideal % for body fat is 7%. When I was 16 years old my 7% body fat was 215. Now that I'm older and not in HS, I can imagine that my 10% body fat is in the range of 235-240 pounds, well above what the "ideal" BMI would be for my height, which is 6-2. Granted, I've got a ways to go to get to that, but to give you an idea the size of my frame, just measuring the bones across my wrist, they're 2.5 inches across. I'm probably never going to get below a size 36, probably more like a size 38.Quote:
Originally Posted by wartknight
The more I read this stuff, the more I think it's not about looking out for the public's well-being. It's about sqeezing every penny out of the public's pocket that they can. A fat tax? Give me a break!
BMI is not a good measure. I am 5' 11". When I was doing marathon training, I was 170lbs and getting pretty skinny. My BMI was 23 then. I started lifting a lot more this past year and have gained 25 lbs, my BMI is going up but my bodyfat percentage has dropped from 26% -> 16%, and keeps going down as my weight goes up. I hope to weigh about 210 when all is said and done, that would put me at a BMI of over 30, and I would be considered obese.Quote:
Originally Posted by wartknight