CDC says in 2030 42% of Americans will be obese and I say...

bm99

im not for a fat tax, i have a major problem with the Government telling people what they can eat or drink. but what they should do is keep EBT/Foodstamps from being used for stuff like Little Debbie Cakes and Soft Drinks. I have always had an attitude about while i am buying store brand and shopping for the best deal, the people in front of me at the register with food stamps are always buying namebrands, and stuff i wouldn't buy because its way to expensive. its even worse now that i am eating better seeing people buy cookies, chips, cokes, etc and paying with a Peachcard.

i think limiting EBT/Foodstamps to things like meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, breads and grains, dairy etc would be a start.

another thing that hacks me off is our local bakery accepts EBT. Now i love this bakery and i dont fault them for wanting to take EBT because money is money. But with the exception of Casseroles at thanksgiving and christmas, 99% percent of what 99% of people buy should qualify for EBT.

Why stop there? Give them a bag of rice and a brick of government cheese per week and call it a day. That more than most poor people around the world see.

DarthH8

You cant legislate people into caring. You can become an idiot nanny state though.

Sick kids raise health care costs, too. So do old people, smokers, people unfortunate enough to live in highly polluted areas and so on and so on. Thats the price you pay for getting insurance. Do you ever speed? I don't. Thanks for raising my auto insurance prices.

The ONLY thing that will ever work is more nutrition education and old fashioned shame. Scrap so called fat acceptance and stop putting up with excuses and people will change

Good old fashioned shame. I noticed someone else responded to this as a negative thing. But to be honest it doesn't have to be that way. Instead of thinking of it as making fun of people for being fat, think of it as not letting them think it's okay to be fat. I was told from 14-24 that I was a skinny guy. After looking at my picture from 1 and a half years ago and now, I call bull****. I definitely didn't fit into the obese category, yet I was incredibly unhealthy and overweight.

The way we treat fat people is more than likely the problem. It is not okay to be where I was, I started to develop some pretty nasty health issues, and that is fact. So regardless if I looked "average" or "fat", I definitely was not skinny and was overweight. I HONESTLY HAD NO IDEA. Even with the belly that I had and a lot of fat on my chest it didn't seem that fat to me because of the way people treated me. It's been months since I realized this and I'm still not over being at the high of my life as a direct result of it. If you think you are fat, and you aren't a whiney 100 lb 20 year old girl who drank too much the previous night, you are probably fat. Don't let people tell you that you aren't, and do something about it. Problem solved :-D

I really don't think the US government can help it's citizen's this time. We're new, give us a chance to figure out we aren't doing it right. I doubt obesity will destroy America before we figure it out. It's not going to be an endlessly growing number until everyone is dead.

Now as for getting taxed based on this, lol-government-and-powerful-dudes-trying-to-make-money. It's just another business to these guys, and there will always be lobbyists and government officials pushing for more power and money. It's like a department store chain putting going out of business signs on the front of their building for like 10 years. They aren't really going out of business, they just want to trick you into going there and buying out all their **** at a "cheap going out of business" price. There isn't really an obesity problem, they are just trying to make money any way they can (especially with America in such a ****ty position as of late). It'll go away eventually, I just bite the bullet and pay for stuff like that.

garlic7girl

My issue is the statistic of the children...they are big and getting bigger and sad that I am 40 and can out run some of the elementary school kids!!!!! When I was a school nurse I was astounded at the health issues these young people have! ADULT health issues. Cholesterol's of a typical 50 year old! I am afraid for the kids....they will not live as long or have the same quality of life....

christinet8504

All I know for sure is that I will not be contributing to that percentage - based on ANY measurement the government decides to use,

FitLink

Maybe it's different in the South, but it seems like a large majority of people are obese.

We're not part of the South, but Missouri is one of the fattest states. I found the stat from last year and 66% of Missouri adults are overweight or obese and looking around every day, that figure seems pretty accurate. The CDC's projection does not surprise me. Of course that can always be changed if we choose to change it.

Missouri would be considered part of the south.

FitLink

I'm sorry, but 30% of people walking around where I live ARE obese, and I used to be one of them. It is a problem. Manufacturers put high fructose cornsyrup in almost all processed foods. Maybe we could start addressing the problem with that.

Stop buying it. Problem solved and no laws needed.

[ETA: Yep couldn't agree more with this statement. If people do not buy the "bad" foods then companies involved with food will stop selling it, distributing it, producing it. Supply vs. demand. Why do you think more fast food joints are adding fruit, salads and lower calorie versions of their food? It's not because they thought it would be a good idea. It's because market research and their customers told them that they needed to change the menu.]

problem is most people DGAF and health care costs go up as do other expenses.

You cant legislate people into caring. You can become an idiot nanny state though.

Sick kids raise health care costs, too. So do old people, smokers, people unfortunate enough to live in highly polluted areas and so on and so on. Thats the price you pay for getting insurance. Do you ever speed? I don't. Thanks for raising my auto insurance prices.

The ONLY thing that will ever work is more nutrition education and old fashioned shame. Scrap so called fat acceptance and stop putting up with excuses and people will change

I think nutrition education is a good start but I also think food preparation training is another excellent choice. At the risk of citing an example at the extreme but one of my son's friends didn't know how to boil water. He also didn't know how to operate a washing machine and dryer. Apparently these skills were not taught to him in his 19 years of life when I met him.

But I have to disagree with you on the "old fashioned shame". I read a post on another thread where the poster stated she had gained weight as a result of taking prednisone for a lung issue and that was how she gained weight. And what about folks with a food addiction that might require help from the mental health community? Or would you shame the 19 year old in my story above who was never taught these skills?

As I mentioned these are examples in the extreme, but I don't see where shaming helps anyone. I agree that there are people making excuses and even I have done so myself when I wasn't ready to address my weight issue. In fact, I wasn't looking to address my weight issue when I fell ill and started taking a medication that had a side effect of losing weight. I chose to see this as an opportunity to kick start my weight loss program. And I've been learning a lot that I either didn't know or, knew and had forgotten.

Weight loss already has enough emotion in it for some and there is certainly no reason to add such a negative emotion as shame into the mix. Any program that is going to work must be a positive model.

So in theory I have no problem with a "fat tax" if I thought a positive-oriented program containing nutritional education paired with food preparation training or some thing of the like. But let's face it that's not going to happen.

In Arizona, when the "tobacco" money came in it was spent on education, head start programs, health care for pre-school age children and finally a stop smoking campaign with a call center and supplies to help people to quit smoking. There was a a lot of uproar about the money being on non-tobacco related expenses. So what did the State do when the money ran. Put an initiative in front of the voters for a tax hike to continue funding those organizations. The tax rate increase won hands down and this was supposed to get the State out of the red.

But no, I think the governor and the legislator's thought hey we got them to pay before and the tax rate hike is about to expire. Let's see if we can extend the tax rate hike permanently. If we do that then what else can we get people to pay for. Road maintenance, yes, let's get the constituents to pay for road maintenance and these other programs that they voted to save before. So they got some initial feedback that no one liked the idea of a "permanent" tax hike. Okay so will you settle for an 8 year tax rate hike to fund the previous programs and we'll take out the road maintenance. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next legislative session.

And as recently as two weeks ago the State received federal funds to assist homeowners who were having difficulties paying their mortgages or are in the process of foreclosure. Of the $97 million received, the governor lopped $50 million off the top to reimburse the State for helping homeowners over the last 2-3 years. But the feds fired back that the terms for receiving funds did not allow states to be reimbursed for previous expenses. In other words, the full $97 million was to assist homeowners currently have difficulties. It will also be interesting to see how this plays out. But my bet is on the State.

So if those come down to States implementing a fat tax to curb obesity I don't have a whole lot of confidence in my State's ability to implement any kind of true education program.

I suspect however that we will see what happened with cigarette taxes. People stopped buying cigarettes. But at the same time sells for "herbal" alternatives went up and some of those were banned for sell due to health risks. Some buy loose tobacco because its cheaper and roll their own. Now it's e-cigarettes and it is cutting into the tobacco market big time. But those items are not generally taxed because sales tax is not collected at the time of sale and buyers under-report to the State department of revenue. That loophole will probably get closed just like the loophole for collecting tobacco taxes online got closed. However, there are still die hard cigarette smokers out there that continue to smoke cigarettes. And there people who quit smoking. BTW, people who use e-cigarettes no longer consider themselves smokers. It is an area rife for debate because the nicotine is still in an e-cigarette but all of the carcinogenic properties such as tar, smoke, etc are removed. Any way tax revenue from smoking is down. Where are we going to get our tax revenue from in the future?

Ah yes, fat tax ... revenue problem solved. And then will come the substitutes ... people rolling their own pizzas, internet sales of sweet treats, etc.

So yeah the "government" will say it is all about your health and the costs of health care but I don't personally believe it is. It is about getting money into government coffers. The last well (tobacco money) is drying up and it's time to dig a new well.

It's always sad when someone who ACTUALLY is fat through no fault of their own is made fun of. Remember when there was like one or two fat kids per grade? That's when you could pretty much assume there was something wrong (although people were still horrible).

The more fat is not accepted, the more likely people will teach themselves/their kids about the proper way of eating and staying active. Look at smoking. Right now it is perfectly fine to tell people who smoke that they are disgusting and people are quitting like crazy (even I did!).

I don't know where you got the idea that "it is perfectly fine to tell people who smoke that they are disgusting." It's not okay to tell anyone they're disgusting.

lolcatftw

Baby BOOMERS indeed. It's not just junk food. America is built on BIG meals--at home and out. This is sure to upset your kcal intake:burn ratio no matter how well you eat. Anyway, that number seems pretty much inline with one of my favorite time-lapsed data maps, albiet even a little low:

Obesity Trends in the U.S. [1985 - 2006]
http://www.ehd.org/health_obesity.php

^Pretty depressing stuff. My desktop background is a map of the USA using the newest dataset available at CalorieLab. California is "only" at 24.8%. Whohoo!