Most Americans Want Public Policies to Prevent Obesity

Can we say "Nanny-state"?

 

Nanny state!

Yes, this is a very, very pointless and strange way to get fat people skinny, but I don't mind if it hits here, I'm crack skinny, without the crack!

 

Now this is where that program i saw on More4 (TV channel) come in. The presenter logically look at all the ways to tackle obisity and found out that (shock horror) that people are only going to get skinny if you introduce a monitory insentive. Aka a "Fat Tax".

The presenter then worked his way through a range of ways to tax people and found out (supprise!) that the only way people were going to notice being taxed would be to tax them directly on their income.

if your over 32 on the BMI scale (or what ever the number is that defines you medically as being obease) then you have a tax taken away from your income. The higher your number the more tax is taken away from you.

What im trying to say is that it seems that the general public dont want to have to self regulate when it comes to a mirriad of things. Yet they dont want to be told what to do. Its a loose-loose situation!

Just my 2p's

 

Hm... fat tax... that might actually work. Better than this idiotic nanny-state idea anyways.

 

Yes! A progressive fat-tax based on weight over the recommended standard deviation of ideal weight.

The more obese you are, the more fat tax you pay. And even greater tax on fast foods and unhealthy foods to curb the fact that most Americans after fat tax could only afford McDicks.

The tax money can in turn be used to subsidize healthier eating, weight loss incentives, nutritional counselling etc.

Or to give as foreign aid - calorie transfer payments to developing countries!

 

Just like cabon trading!!!

 

Thats BS! The BMI is an extremely poor indicator of health, if the person does any sort of exercise or is an athlete the BMI doesnt take into acount the mass of muscle e.g. im about 5" 7' and weigh roughly 170 lbs which gives me an index of 26.6 which firmly places me in the overweight category. I go down to the gym 3 times a week and I assure you I am NOT overweight.

e.g.2 my teacher goes to the same gym as I do he must be 6 foot easy and weighs about 240 lbs ish placing him in the obese range. Same sort of thing, this guy is anything but obese yet he'd incure a fat tax.

Now im not having a go at you, but I find the idea of a 'fat tax' ridiculus people lose there hard earned income because they cant be arsed doing some exercise?! Its there choice and there loss, they'll die sooner than later.

 

Great

"We're not only obese, but we're too stupid and lazy to correct that, so please, force us to".

Nation of children....

 

Fat tax? So the government take your money, proclaiming to be doing it in your interests... A true display of moralist nonsense if ever I saw it, with a capitalist twist to boot.

 

How about taxation by weight of the man boob!

mr tax man: "put your man tits on the scales please"
obese man: *complies*
mr tax man: "i'm sorry.. it appears your tax rate has doubled.. perhaps you should hit the gym. Many thanks"

 

And now they're grown-ups. Evidence seems to fit. Homo simpson rather than homo sapiens.

 

OH i know that the idea is contravertial and ive never claimed that it was my own.
The BMI scale is unreliable so another way of internationally testing the fat is required.

Also saying that fat people die younger is true however they generally use more health resources because of it! The tax directly on income would be (as discussed in the TV program on More4) assessed yearly and if you are no longer catagorised as obease then you wouldnt be taxed. Unfortunatly many people need an insentive to loose weight. Im open to all suggestions of how its done but to me this sounds like the best option.

 

The best option? Tax the poorest people in society some more? I beg to differ.

A flat tax for being obese would have to be low otherwise it'd bankrupt the majority of obese people(who are poor). But in that case, the not insiginificant number of better off people are going to be uneffected by maybe a £50-100 charge on them being fat-asses.

A far superior taxation solution would be to put a levy on fast food joints, just a few pence here and there - and to reduce healthy ingredients prices through subsidisation. Healthy food costs too much right now. That said, I am not in any way for a taxation scheme. If the health service isn't universal then soon we'll be at private health care for all but the superfit superhealthy, and that's not what taking care of each other as a nation is supposed to be about.

Whys that then? They don't need to lose the weight. If they don't, it's their problem. I know they cost the NHS however many billions a year, but then, old people practically rape the NHS for everything it's worth. It's just something one must accept.

It seems to me a kind of facism has arisen in this country whereby people who are very into not smoking or doing lots of exercise or eating a supremely balanced diet ; they seem to feel the need to force everyone else to do the same, not realising that these people are grown up adults who can make choices for themselves. If they want to screw up their lives let them. In the meanwhile, stop screwing with the country and enjoy life.

 

Actually That was covered in the program and was found to be a misconception. The cost of Healthy food was found to be the same price as the fast food and ready-meals. The price the people add onto "healthy food" is the preperation time. As we all know that Time= money. HOWEVER that has also been shown that you can make a very decent meal in 15 mins.

I never specified how much the tax would be. That would have be worked out via a referendum/public vote. You would also give people enough time to adjust.
Again covered in the program, you would let people know that they have one or two years before the tax would come into force. Telling people that today you will be taxed without giving them warning is wrong and i dont want that to happen at all.

The best option? Tax the poorest people in society some more? I beg to differ.

I agree with you with the tax on fast food joints. However how far will this go? Would you like to start levying tax on "unhealthy ingrediants" and how would you deffirentiate between so called healthy and unhealthy ingrediants? Its been proven that you need fat in your diet, but obviously you dont need lots of it! Would it be a good idea to tag people to see how much fat they have eaten and then tax accordingly?

I know that was a bit over the top but i hope that im making a satifactory point.

Why shouldnt we all go to private health with subsadised health care for the very poor. Get Rid of the National Insurance and then use that money for private health care like the US system.

Personally im not for that. I like the the NHS's no payment at the point of service. However i do feel that it should be discussed as its an option.

People dont need to loose weight i agree, however the only people who would be taxed would be those classed as being obease. You can be overweight as that has its own catagory in the BMI or equivalent and i would hope that the definaition dosent "creep" to incompase more people to generate more money.

Also "old people" have made a life times contributions of National Insurance contributions. Obease people generally havnt contributed nearly enough.
Devils Advocate - are you going to give people the treatment according to how much contributions that they have made?

There are many problems with ANY sort of tax on a specific group of people, however these things need to be discussed so that better alternatives can be found.

 

If you're going to look at the US system, look at all of it. The US pays more for heath care than any industiralized nation and gets less for that money. The health care industry is the ONLY growth sector in our economy, every other sector is hurting to support it. Currently you have businesses in bankruptcy because of contracted health care benefits fo their employees.

Look at the costs for minimal health insurance. You're talking at LEAST 200-300 a month, every month, whether you use it or not and that's for bare minimum coverage.

Your NHS may not be prefect, but I'd say it's a damn sight better than they "system" we have here.

 

NHS=bad, bad, bad! Health care in the US has gotten worse by becoming more and more socialized. A large majority..of how many surveyed? Telling people what to eat or how much is ****ing stupid.

 

Health care in the US has gotten worse by becoming more capitolistic, not socialized. NO ONE sould be making a profit on health care.

 

I’m not sure if healthy food cost the SAME as fast food and ready made meals but you’re absolutely true in that it’s a misconception that it cost a crap load more! I happily live of a meal of tuna in a can, frozen veg, chicken breasts and pasta and 2 protein shakes due to my protein requirement, which needs to be about 140g per day.

Aside from the shakes it’s a fairly cheep diet and its healthy! The problem is people are too bone idle to research it for themselves and take there health into there own hands. Like I said before, there loss! Shame they’ll drain out health system while they’re at it

 

All this talk of "bad" tax increases and "good" tax-breaks is to offset the increased costs imposed on the health system caused by obesity. Another way to look at this could be to directly limit health spending on people who fall into this category of obesity. (I've actually been saying this same thing for a while now about smokers.)

As has been stated by numerous people in this thread; People have the rights to choose their lifestyle - either healthy or otherwise. But by choosing this - you choose by default the concequences. In this case, limited health care. This then puts the onus on the individual to look after themselves, not for the government to tax them into being skinny.

 

What about drinkers? People who drive fast cars? People who play sunday-league football? People who like climbing?

What about an exercise tax? Tax those who don't work-out. Tax those who don't have 5 portions of fruit & veg a day....

Let's tax miners (not that there are many left). They chose to be miners and thus must accept their increased risk of lung complaints and the likes of white-finger.

Let's tax the poor more... They generally have much worse lifestyles and require more from the NHS. I mean, if they cared, they should have got themselves a better education and become lawyers and accountants.

Let's tax the parents of children with Down's Syndrome. An amniocentesis test could have easily determined that their unborn child had a genetic abnormality, but they still went full term.

etc...

Be very wary of categorizing people like this. You may not smoke and you may not be obese, but you may well fit an another category that falls foul of the system.


I'm very much in favour of taxing junk & processed food and promoting healthier foods. Good meat is so expensive when compared to the processed variety, so we resort to processed food...which comes with salt, sugar, fat, chemicals & steriods.

Tax the crap, which will both encourage the manufacturers to produce better food and will discourage us from buying it. And give breaks to the guys who produce the good foods. There must be both a stick and a carrot.

And then re-invest in sport facilities, and stop the sale of school playing fields for development.