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Should junk food be taxed?
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Carlos_421 wrote: »Or we could just skip the fat shaming and let people take responsibility for their own selves.
We could skip government funded medical care for those who willingly abuse food & drugs as well and let people take responsibility for themselves.
Fixed it and yup.6 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Or we could just skip the fat shaming and let people take responsibility for their own selves.
We could skip government funded medical care for those who willingly abuse food & drugs as well and let people take responsibility for themselves.
Fixed it and yup.
I approve of this message.2 -
Jonesingmucho wrote: »Jonesingmucho wrote: »Taxes have such a bad connotation and many seem to doubt the tax money would actually go into programs fighting obesity, so let's just put a scale at the register so when you check out if you are trying to buy junk food, you have to step on the scale and your weight would be announced over the loudspeaker.
I know for me, this would be a GREAT deterrent to buying junk food.
then that should be a requirement for all foods, because all calories make you fat not just "junk"...
Oh man! You are right! I retract my idea! I would never be able to buy food again if my idea was put into play. I would have to hire surrogate shoppers.
How about if you buy zero calorie foods you don't have to weigh? I'm not sure how long I could live on celery and Diet Coke, but...
Wait! Let's link the scale to MFP so that your exercise calories can cancel out what you are buying! You would have to create a deficit by exercising before you buy food. If the exercise caloric deficit doesn't balance out food purchases, you have to put back higher calorie items until you balance.
Wait! I need to figure this out so that I can become filthy rich off my idea since everyone would have to register for MFP. I need some kind of referral bonus from Reebok or whoever owns MFP now...
x hits pause button to craft evil mastermind get rich scheme x
you could still by food, you just be shamed for buying excess calories instead of xyz food that has been deemed "bad" because it is "junk"...which is a totally subjective term...0 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Or we could just skip the fat shaming and let people take responsibility for their own selves.
We could skip government funded medical care for those who willingly abuse food & drugs as well and let people take responsibility for themselves.
Fixed it and yup.
I can get behind this idea...well, I've been there for some time, but still, yeap.1 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Or we could just skip the fat shaming and let people take responsibility for their own selves.
We could skip government funded medical care for those who willingly abuse food & drugs as well and let people take responsibility for themselves.
Fixed it and yup.
+1 on that1 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Define junk.
This. It's such a subjective term that is really meaningless. I'm in excellent health and have a BMI of under 22. I eat a wide variety of foods. Why should I have to pay any more for the chocolate chips I buy versus the mushrooms I buy? They both fit into my healthy diet and lifestyle.4 -
Packerjohn wrote: »We start taxing junk food then what? Then someone will realize that junk food is made from healthy items as well.. so heck no to more freaking government!
Freedom to be fat, freedom to be thin, freedom to just be!!!
So are you okay with your taxes going up to pay for the healthcare of the 30% of the population that will have diabetes in 2050? If not we need to start doing something about it now.
I honestly don't think it will help. Cigarettes can be given up, but people eat what they eat. The reason we have an obesity epidemic is because people don't think about food, they just grab what's there and insist they don't have time to change. People will just think, "Oh well, food prices are going up" which is what they do anyway, as they buy the same stuff they always do. At best, some people who are on the borderline where they are carefully counting their pennies may start making better choices to save a buck. But we would still be paying for say 27% of the population having diabetes PLUS paying extra for junk food, which you don't have to give up entirely to have a healthy diet.
And as others have said, I'm sure people like potato, corn, and wheat producers would fight against it, as those non-junk foods are ingredients in plenty of junk foods.
And companies that produce junk food also produce healthy foods, so chances are they would raise the price of their healthier offerings to offset the reduction in price they would put on the "junk food" so people would not notice the extra tax on it and keep buying it.
Agreed.. good post
Now that I am more aware, have you ever watched someone in the grocery store actually buy food, they are clueless about food in general. I am not talking an over weight person either.
Have you ever been behind someone in a buffet restaurant that piles food on top of food and these overweight individuals, want to be over weight. I cannot stop a human from the buffet line.
Are we gonna shock people when they pick up the junk food in the store, are we gonna have to stop over weight people from going into buffet restaurants..
This goes way way beyond junk food.. Junk food is food too.. ITS NOT ABOUT JUNK FOOD!
Many times we don't have the full picture either. I shop at two different stores, we get our meat from a local farm share, get our eggs from a local source, get most of our bread from a local bakery and I also have permission to take what I want from our neighbors garden
Oh, and our alcohol and tea comes from a specially shop as well lol. If you saw me at one of the stores though, you'd have no idea of this and would probably be pretty judgmental of what I was buying. As far as buffet eating-I went several times when I was in my active weight loss phase and I'm sure people looked at me and saw a fat person loading up a plate and probably judged. But, what they weren't seeing was that I allotted calories for that meal, and if they really looked carefully would have seen a lot of low calorie options mixed in with the higher ones. 1 -
I don't think so. Honestly it would mean I would just be fat and even more broke than I already am1
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crzycatlady1 wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Define junk.
This. It's such a subjective term that is really meaningless. I'm in excellent health and have a BMI of under 22. I eat a wide variety of foods. Why should I have to pay any more for the chocolate chips I buy versus the mushrooms I buy? They both fit into my healthy diet and lifestyle.
Just as a counter argument, someone in good health, not overweight drinks beer or wine occasionally, why should that person pay more in taxes on the product that someone who drinks Coke?0 -
Packerjohn wrote: »crzycatlady1 wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Define junk.
This. It's such a subjective term that is really meaningless. I'm in excellent health and have a BMI of under 22. I eat a wide variety of foods. Why should I have to pay any more for the chocolate chips I buy versus the mushrooms I buy? They both fit into my healthy diet and lifestyle.
Just as a counter argument, someone in good health, not overweight drinks beer or wine occasionally, why should that person pay more in taxes on the product that someone who drinks Coke?
I concur, and sin taxes should die in a fire as well.3 -
It's a moral code tax, and I'm flat out against that.1
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Packerjohn wrote: »crzycatlady1 wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Define junk.
This. It's such a subjective term that is really meaningless. I'm in excellent health and have a BMI of under 22. I eat a wide variety of foods. Why should I have to pay any more for the chocolate chips I buy versus the mushrooms I buy? They both fit into my healthy diet and lifestyle.
Just as a counter argument, someone in good health, not overweight drinks beer or wine occasionally, why should that person pay more in taxes on the product that someone who drinks Coke?
They shouldn't (in my opinion).1 -
No, because...
“Freedom necessarily involves risk. You can not have a free country, which is at the same time a nursery…”
–Alan Watts8 -
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GaleHawkins wrote: »
We're deferring to the WHO on matters of political theory now?2 -
No. It is not the job of government to use taxation to manipulate behavior.
Where does it end? Taxing people for not having a gym membership? A tax for not using the gym enough?
The government is wrong nearly all the time when it decides what we should be eating.
The creation of the food pyramid led to an increase in obesity.4 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »
We're deferring to the WHO on matters of political theory now?
I think WHO thinks they should to our thinking for us because we are not smart enough to think for ourselves in these matters perhaps.0 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »
We're deferring to the WHO on matters of political theory now?
I think WHO thinks they should to our thinking for us because we are not smart enough to think for ourselves in these matters perhaps.
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GaleHawkins wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »
We're deferring to the WHO on matters of political theory now?
I think WHO thinks they should to our thinking for us because we are not smart enough to think for ourselves in these matters perhaps.
WHO's role is to make recommendations. That doesn't mean they think "we" (who is we?) are not "smart enough." That's a weirdly negative way to look at it.3
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