The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

jeffevanoff — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:43:02 GMT

Two things the government can do to help the obesity problem.

Stop subsidizing GMO corn (HFCS) & soybeans.

Start subsidizing organic produce.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

rabbitville — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:55:53 GMT

When I started Intuitive Eating last year I was strongly encouranged to give up Splenda in my coffee to help prevent sugar craving late in the day. I cut my coffee consumption in half and started using sugar (I chose evaporated cane juice--have no idea if it's any better), and along with the new way of eating, cravings have stopped. Losing weight slowly and meals are a joy.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

Heather Marsh — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:22:13 GMT

referring to this tax as an obesity tax!

How very rude - and inaccurate.

There are many more reasons for obesity than excessive calories or lack of exercise.

Being bigger makes you feel less vulnerable. People are forced to stay further away from your core by virtue of your extra flesh. A need for extra security can make your body very resistant to weight loss regardless of food quality, calorie restriction and exercise.

And a child of parents whose only form of nurturing is via food may well keep trying to fill the emptiness long after physical satiation.

Then there are differences in metabolism. My husband is 17 years older than I and eats a lot of 'junk' snacks, drinks chocolate flavoured soy milk and glucose energy drinks, lots of soda, lollies, cookies, crisps, cake and chocolate. He basically grazes throughout the day. We even have one serving sized packets of Nutrigrain (similar to Cheerios) which he munches on whilst watching the television.

He has 3 HEAPED spoonfuls of sugar in each of his many hot beverages throughout the day. He does not much like more than a very little herbs or spices in his meals, but is quite content to drown most foods in ketchup or other commercial sauces.

He prefers the flavour of commercial mayonaises to the ones I make at home with egg yolk, lemon juice and macadamia oil, and prefers the taste and spreadability of margerine to that of butter, and prefers supermarket bread to any I make.

And he is quite slender.

My sugar and grain intake is a fraction of his, I consume a lot more water, eat butter rather than margerine, prefer non-homegenised milk (alas this costs more than twice as much as homogenised) and try to eat much of my foods as wholefoods.

And I am not slender.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

WendyLavender — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:33:53 GMT

Why just pick on the sugar in soda? Just about ALL prepared foods contain sugar, including ketsup, including organic, natural, and even supposedly healthy foods have sugar added. Try doing a sugar free diet seriously by reading all ingredient labels on the food we consume. Why don't we raise tax on all foods that contain sugar, corn syrup, etc! Why don't we raise taxes on sugar and all unhealthy sweeteners so high no one would want to put them in all our food.

Boy we would all get healthy, We probably could pay off the whole national debt with the taxes, and save tons of money paid out for illnesses resulting from the over use of sugars- including diabetis.- Wendy

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

LabLora — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:19:31 GMT

This is a much bigger issue than bad food choices...It is just a way to get tax dollars, and control the general population...In the name of HEALTH and SAFETY we are loosing our RIGHTS to make our own choices, whether good or bad. If Cigarettes, soda, fast food are so bad, why are they around? -- because of the $$ the big GOV gets. Just like here in AZ, in the name of safety we have red light camera's. You get a ticket in the mail...this is run by a third party company. If I called the police and said "joe" ran a read light, here is his picture and liscense plate number could the police issue him a ticket? - - NO. Oh and the poor auto industry - we have been sold a bill of goods about gov safety. Once the GOV gets into regulating our vitamins/supplements - oh I just cannot go there. I'd like to go back to letting WE THE PEOPLE decide and have the GOV work FOR US!

Blessings,

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

hum — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:22:07 GMT

the source of the problem is in manufacture and the fact that public watchdogs and regulatory bodies appear to be either bought off by the manufacturers or are non existant.

The general public trust that manufacturers and government agencies will act responsibly on their behalf, whilst they work to pay their taxes which in turn pay for said services. They are most obviously, in almost every country in the world, remiss in their service to the general public.

It is simple task for politicians to legislate and regulate and police industry standards, such as banning processed sugars and sugar suppliments or minimizing allowable amounts in products. Their success, sadly, is dependent on how far they are afraid to go! as in most countries Industry has somebody or many somebody's doing favours for them somewhere along the power trail.

Most of the public will not be aware of the reality that they are not being "looked after" but being used as cash cows, some people will always need "responsible others" that do realise this to look after them.

If it is not possible to get manufacturers to voluntarily "do the right thing" it will take entrepreneurially determined people and organizations to replace them.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

monkeybrother — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:58:51 GMT

I really like a lot of the comments and elucidation on this topic. I think one of the solutions to obesity is somewhat of a tax built on incentive. First of all, I think it is generally accepted that obesity is a tax on us all with increased health care costs, increased insurance premiums, lost time at work and decreased productivity and a proliferation of vacuous food-stuff. The proliferation of the food-stuff weakens America in general even if you are not obese as it is very difficult to have a weak body and a strong mind and spirit, thus another tax. Second, except in rare instances, obesity is not a disease, it's a condition. I feel as a general rule, insurance premiums should be significantly higher for people who are obese and that they should be rewarded progressively as they lose weight with lower rates(people already have their rates increased for numerous conditions). I also feel that insurance rates for smokers should be 2-3 times that of non-smokers(it is not at this time, only with life insurance). Obviously this alone does not do much to change the problem but is one of the many incentives and changes that need to take place. I would love to see physical health as high a priority as reading and writing in our public schools. I have often said that if the government wants to save Medicare it can start by changing the school lunch programs. Lifelong health problems begin in the first 10 years of life.

I don't really expect this to be implemented as this is a democracy with majority rule and the majority of Americans are now obese.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

William509 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:33:38 GMT

I can almost see the benefit of this proposal, but perhaps we could save just as many tax dollars and get a small increase in the price if we talked about the GMO High Fructose Corn Syrup that is being used. Read the label, it says 'High Fructose Corn Syrup'. Most don't contain sugar.

I understand Sugar is tough on our bodies, but as dangerous as HFCS?

We stop subsidising farming of Frankencorn, we save a bundle and get the GMO pollen count down, increase the awareness of the now heavily advertised HFCS and give a lovely boost to the cane sugar growers (as opposed to the GMO beet folks), who haven't been polluted by Monsanto and ADM as yet.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

vlb — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:19:05 GMT

The Obesity Tax or any other kind of tax enforced on people is ridiculous and completely unfair...those in favor of it are NOT God!!!!!

Shame on all of them and if Mercola approves of an obesity tax or any other type of punishment or control of people the I don't want anything to do with you an longer and will unsubscribe immediately.

Shame!

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

Karoe — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:26:48 GMT

When a person is a 'food' addict (no matter what substance it is) they need to be treated as such. Addiction is not cured by increasing the price of the substance to which the victims are addicted. These people need help and education and easily available, cheap alternatives. Dr. M says drink water...great idea, but tap water which is easily available, doesn't taste good. My cats won't even drink it if it stays out more than an hour. As a country we should consider the skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates as the result of our having become a nation of ADDICTS. That's exactly where the food industry wants us, by the way, and it's really very hard to face. I believe it's the first step, however.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

Dave Heyel — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:04:51 GMT

I believe we should tax foods with high amounts of processed sugar in them. Sugar is an addictive substance and information from the US government shows that there has been a 30% increase in sugar intake, a 10% decrease in fat intake and a 30% increase in obesity in the US since 1970. This leads to the possibility that processed sugar is the cause of the obesity problem in the us.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

wbradd3797 — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:43:46 GMT

NY didn’t address the real problem it’s NOT real sugar but High Fructose Corn Syrup which goes straight to fat storage, what is call adipose fat. Also HFCS is a long chain fatty acid clogging the pancreas and liver causing diabetes and other health problems.

Other issues are that HFCS is in just about everything. It is more addicting than heroin and nicotine. It’s a known depressant and a lot of the time combined with MSG or one of it’s variants to make it more addicting. So the sell of some other produced like pix sticks and ice cream will probably go through the roof so people can get their fix.

The proper solution to the epidemic is to remove HFCS from ALL prepackaged food.

But this obliviously isn’t about health it’s about NY making a buck off of someone’s addiction.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

PharmLess — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:18:00 GMT

This video is the most insulting thing I've seen in a long time. I had to finally stop lurking around here to say something. I can't get over this commissioner guy. This thing is practically a cartoon! Is this aimed at kids? So you want to tax kids?

People who drink soda are like people who smoke cigarettes are like people who drink alcohol. Unless you're a garden slug, you know what you're doing.

We don't need these stupid pictures -- the jar of sugar, the blob of foam fat, and my favorite, the money on the table 'to buy things you really want' -- to know about the 'evils' of soda. If we were all out here mooing in our stupidity, would the added step of taxing us put lightbulbs over our heads?

I just can't get over how insulting the video and how abusive the tax proposal are!

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

PharmLess — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:52:06 GMT

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

First, most sodas contain HFCS -- probably GM -- not cane sugar. Diet soda contains all manner of laboratory-synthesized chemicals. So, by not taxing the diet versions, is Patterson trying to get us to believe that these are better? Can we say 'Soylent Green'???

I drink maybe one soda a week, closer to one per month. When I do, I want a good soda. Gourmet, if you will. (I am not obese. My teeth responded beautifully to a change to well water and toothpaste without Fluoride.) I don't believe I deserve to be financially punished for drinking that soda -- whatever the cost. For those who drink 10 sodas a week, their size is their punishment. Who is this greedy politician that he thinks it's okay to treat humans like ignorant cattle and take their money like this?

If something is too bad to be released to the public, it should be outlawed or only be available to those 'over 21'. Using tax to punish people for buying something that is perfectly legal to consume is an abuse of power. It is greedy, insulting, and just plain stupid.

re: The Obesity Tax Proposal -- A Good Idea Or a Waste of Time?

Mamachibi — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:49:27 GMT

When I was a kid, you could buy an eight-ounce glass bottle of Coke for a quarter. You'd give the a nickel for the bottle return, but you got that back when you returned the bottle. The small bottles now, in addition to being plastic, are over $1 where I live. People still buy them. What difference will a tax make on top of that? Darned little, I'd venture. But, take the same dollar to the convenience store and you can get a whopping 32 ounces of Coke.

A sin tax won't fix the problem. It is cheaper to buy processed, unhealthy foods for my large family. I've done the math. I've lived it out. In hard financial times, we eat more poorly than we do when we have a healthy bank balance. People in the poorest states have the highest levels of obesity, not because they are stupid, but because they are poor. The cheapest foods: dried beans and rice don't do your insulin level any favors. But, if I'm looking at $1 for a head of lettuce or $1 for one pound of beans PLUS one pound of rice, guess what I'm feeding my family tonight. (Hint: it won't be the one ounce salad that leaves us hungry.)