Is a "Fat Tax" coming?

I think people should be able to eat what they want and be whatever size that they want. It's a personal decision in my opinion, not a government issue. I can understand having to pay more for healthcare if you have unhealthy habits like smoking or are overweight, but otherwise I don't really think it's the governments business. Although I should say that I fully support healthier options in schools because children are too young to be able to understand the consequences of eating poorly.

The problem is that it is becoming a government issue. The military is having a hard time recruiting because many of the current recruits are over weight and don't meet the weight standards. That is a national security issue and IS something the government is worried about. Also, We spend BILLIONS of dollars on weight related health issues for people who can't pay and it increases our insurance premiums. Which means we all pay for everyone else's weight issues.

A direct tax is unlikely, however I can see putting punitive taxes on unhealthy foods or adjusting health insurance rates based upon weight/fitness/compliance with physician instructions. Life insurance premiums are higher for smokers, why shouldn't health insurance premiums be higher for people with unhealthy habits? Why should the rest of us pay for something if the individual doesn't care enough to try?

I read once that overweight people cost insurance companies 7 times as much as smokers do. I wonder if that's true...?

I work for a company that is self-insured and doesn't allow smokers (won't hire you if you smoke and will fire you for lying on your app if they find out you really do), but 70% of my co-workers range from moderately overweight to obese and many are diabetics. I'm not all up on diabetes, but doesn't that oftentimes have to do with being overweight? That's got to be costing us a fortune...my insurance has gone up every year I've worked here.

I think some of you should take a step back for a moment and think about what you are saying. I don't think the government should tax "unhealthy food" it's none of their business what I eat. As many have said, determining what is unhealthy is actually quite difficult. I do think they should adjust the subsidies so that fast food doesn't end up being substantially cheaper than whole foods bought in a supermarket but then the flip side of that is what about those families struggling on the poverty line who manage to keep their kids alive by buying 10 cheeseburgers for 20 cents each. Sure, it's not healthy but it's a lot healthier than being dead.

Also, many of you talk about penalizing those overweight people who can't be bothered to lose weight and be healthy, well sure, there are plenty of those but there are also many people who struggle their whole life and fail to lose significant amounts of weight. Although the responsibility rests with them as always you can also point the finger at our society who often see it as just someone who is weak and probably stupid who should just stop eating twinkies rather than someone possibly with a deranged metabolism and probably some psychological issues. The usual response a fat person will get from their doctor is pathetic given the magnitude of the problem.

These are complex issues and can't just be addressed with some blanket gross generalizations.

As another poster mentioned, you have to start early and fix childhood obesity through education, perhaps better nutritional choices in schools and more emphasis on physical education. The reality is, short of a miraculous scientific breakthrough the current generation is likely to continue to be obese regardless of taxes, education programs or increased medical insurance rates.

I too do not want more gov't interference in people's lives, but obesity doesn't just affect the individual only now. Like someone said, it's becoming a gov't issue. The argument is that lower income families can't afford the healthy stuff so they get the cheap stuff which is usually also the unhealthy stuff. These would be the same demographic that is on public health care and then whatever health problems they develop becomes the responsibility of the public to pay for. There's no plausible way the gov't can impose a tax based on someone's weight. I'm sure that violates some constitutional rights.

As honeysprinkle basically said, ..if a person wants to be fat, then they should be allowed to be fat. I conditionally agree. If it's not effecting anyone else, then sure... I don't care if they eat themselves to death. But others do get affected. I know people in job's that have a minor accident (like tripping over their own file cabinet) and most likely because of their morbidly obeseness, their small tumble results in severe injury and are out months. Sure a non-obese person can trip and fall as well, but I'm willing to bet the chances that the more fit person gets seriously hurt is far far lower. How about those times on an airplane where someone else's ...body .. is in your seat. That would be affecting other people...so it's not as clean cut as ... they should be able to be as fat as they want to be., cause... eventually, ... it's gonna affect someone else.

The government needs to create some jobs to help people get back on their feet. Once they get that done and get the economy out of the toilet, maybe, just maybe they can spend a little time making fat people feel worse about themselves than they already do.

The major problem with a "fat tax" besides being totally ridiculous, is how are they going to measure who's fat?
If it's BMI, get ready for a bunch of lawsuits. Every bodybuilder and athlete's like Adrian Peterson are obese according to BMI.

Instead of taxing us they should find a way to make healthy food cheaper and quit subsidizing the corn industry so companies quit using corn sugar (high fructose corn syrup) in everything because of how cheap it is.