Why should smokers pay for fatties?

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The Tuscan General

Americans get really weird when we talk about obesity. They’re terrified of hurting the feelings of fat people and treat their condition as a mystery, a phenomenon that modern science may someday unravel. If you can’t drink four litres of cola a day and stay skinny, it must mean you have a slow metabolism or something - anything rather than admit that junk food creates porkers. Take California. Research shows that obesity costs the state almost $7.7bn a year. With this in mind, the state legislature last week proposed a new tax on… tobacco.

Just 13% of adults smoke in California, yet lawmakers want to penalise this harassed minority to help pay for the ballooning costs of obesity. But why not tax fast food instead? American shops are awash with sugary and fried snacks that contain almost no nutritional value. It’s not food, it’s calorific entertainment - so charging extra for it is reasonable. It wouldn’t bankrupt junk-food makers, and junk-food eaters might not even notice. But it finally would force junk food to contribute to healthcare instead of just weighing on the system.

obesity, offbeat, thoughts

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 8:36 pm and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.