Society Denmark introduces world's first fat tax

Cimmerianbloke said:
I do not think eating processed or overpriced "healthy" food makes a big difference to how obesity is crawling in western countries. The real problem is lack of physical exercise and educating the masses.
....LeBrok, I know some women who eat the good healthy food you seem to advocate and are still fat.
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Yes, I agree, the biggest problem is how much we eat and not what we eat, though the later is important too, more for skinny types. To do a dent in obesity and health problem, in this case it is easier to implement regulation and force producers not to produce junk food, then force people to eat less. To eat less one has to go against human nature, your genes and your instincts, and this is as difficult as it gets. Exercise? There is only small percentage of people that like exercising. For the rest of us it's suffering, suffering and pain. Again, we are going against human nature. These are the reason, that all the invented so far diets, fail.
That's why I would go with government regulation at first, to at least make obesity problem milder. For the real solution we have to wait for technology to give us the slim pills. In couple of hundreds of years parents will go to the hospital and make doctors to knock off the fat genes from their kids. That's the final solution.


Taxing tobacco and alcool taxes did not solve the problems they created. Just have a look at any A&E department on a friday night, no need to come up with statistics.
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I don't agree, even without going into statistics, I can say that people smoke much less than they used to a generation, not mentioning two, ago. I'm not sure how much taxes did in this regard, probably not much, but awareness of negative health impact and the public pressure, did a good trick. The next step should be to force cigarette manufacturers to make cigarettes without nicotine. It would cut smokers by half in 10 years.


On another hand, I have a strong tendency to rebel against that kind of laws and savage taxing. If the government wants to control what we eat, where does it end?
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I'm the same. But taxes are needed to run a country. As Maciamo said, if we need to tax, let's tax the bad things higher than good ones.



I think they should instead concentrate on the millions leaked every month in social support. Kicking the people up the arse is a sure way to get them to move and start looking for a job.
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I'm for it. Too extensive social net produces many lazy people. I know, it's a hard balance between helping needy and not making them lazy. Obviously we are failing in this regard.

LeBrok, I know some women who eat the good healthy food you seem to advocate and are still fat. The solution you propose is discriminating against poor people, who would see their food bill skyrocket. As a child, all the stuff we bought at home was organic but that was before it became a trend and the organic tag increased the prices. We also had no melons in december, no strawberries in winter and I was 12 when I saw my first kiwi fruit...
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Yes, that's a conundrum. Poor people would definitely had less money to by food. However they are the ones that do most harm to their bodies overeating. At the end it would be beneficial for them if they ate less and better quality food. Also they are the onces that would benefit from government regulations the most. Obviously they can't make healthy choices for themselves. All generally and statistically speaking, of course.
How far we went in our civilization and social virtue, when poor people are the fattest of all in western world? It's used to be reversed in not so distant past, lol.

I came to Canada in age of 22. Till then I only ate organic food in Poland, for lack of other food. Similar situation to yours. From day one in Canada I couldn't believe how shitty the food was. White, tasteless toast bread; hydroponic vegetables tasting like water, with uneatable tomato topping the list; tasteless meat from animals fed only with corn; egg yolk very pail with foul smell. Not sure how I survived this, hehe, but fortunately food improved quite a bit. I like this trend very much.

Not sure who to blame for this tasteless food? 60-ties and 70-ties are to blame, with big families caring more about quantity then quality of food, even though from fiscal necessity. Overwhelmingly English culture is to blame in America too. We know how good and tasty English cousin is. :grin:
 
Cimmerianbloke said:
I do not think eating processed or overpriced "healthy" food makes a big difference to how obesity is crawling in western countries. The real problem is lack of physical exercise and educating the masses.
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I am convinced that the two biggest risk factors for obesity are neither exercise (or lack thereof) nor the amount or quality of food ingested, but the diversity of one's diet (avoid eating the same thing often) and genetics (predisposition to obesity).

I admit that I exercise little these days. I spent far too much time in front of my PC or watching TV when I need to relax. I have always eaten a lot. I can eat as much as I want, indulge in chocolate and ice cream, put two sugars in my tea or coffee, and still I never put on any weight. Changing country and diet has no influence at all (and I have lived in many different countries). Actually, my weight varies with the seasons. Compared to the mid-seasons (spring, autumn), I gain one or two kilos every winter, lose them in spring, and lose an extra one or two kilos in summer. It has been like this for all my adult life. My BMI has always been in the normal, close to underweight range. The only effect that doing regular exercise has on me is that it increases my libido. lol
 
hm, I know it cannot be done in democracy, but maybe there should be tax on overweight people.... might improve average health of nations and reduce medical costs...
 
I find this idea of a 'fat tax' absolutely insane! Just because some idiots out there who eat themselves until they're 300 pounds in weight, doesn't mean everyone else should suffer. What about the people who eat healthily all week then want to have say a cake on the weekend - why should they be taxed more?

What it bares down to is the fact that in countries like Denmark, where they insist on having a ridiculously generous welfare system, fat people put a strain on the National Health Service at the cost of the hard working tax payer. What SHOULD happen, is that everyone should be made to go for yearly health check ups. Obese people should then be warned and given a time frame in which to lose weight, after which time, if they have not lost the weight, then they should be expected to pay for their own health care should they fall ill because of their obesity. I don't see how it's fair that hard working people should bare the cost for idiotic people who are slowly killing themselves and KNOW that they are slowly killing themselves.

Don't punish EVERYONE with a fat tax, punish the FAT PEOPLE who know better!
 
In the name of fairness, I think you are right, even though it might be politically incorrect, under the solidarity auspices, to ostracize and target a certain group in the population. That is the typical argument you will hear from well-meaning idiots that will pay people to stay home and do nothing, eat themselves to death, have 15 children to pile up benefits, all with the taxpayer's money. On a personal level, I believe you are 100% right, and I would force these people to join a sports club and do exercise regularly or lose their medical cover.
 
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