Posted on 06/12/2006 12:44:45 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Doctors will this week declare war on America's soft drinks industry by calling for a 'fat tax' to combat the nation's obesity epidemic.
Delegates at the powerful American Medical Association's annual conference will demand a levy on the sweeteners put in sugary drinks to pay for a massive public health education campaign.
They will also call for the amount of salt added to burgers and processed foods to be halved.
The moves come as U.S. doctors - like their British counterparts - are becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing number of deaths linked to obesity.
The resolution will put doctors on a collision course with Coca-Cola and Pepsi, plus the likes of McDonald's and Burger King.
Sales of soft drinks in U.S. schools are in decline ahead of the introduction of guidelines allowing only healthier low-calorie drinks, plus milk and certain fruit juices, over the next two years.
But the medical association wants to go further. Delegates at its Chicago conference are gunning in particular for high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener which is added to everything from ketchup to cola.
One American politician labelled it the 'crack of sweeteners' because it is so widespread.
Some U.S. cities and states already levy taxes on soft drinks or junk foods that raise £500million a year, said Michael Jacobsen, director of the Centre for Science and the Public Interest, an independent health watchdog. But earmarking tax revenue for programmes promoting better diet would be a first, he added.
American doctors are seeing the same alarming trends as those in Britain where obesity is considered to be a 'ticking timebomb of epidemic proportions'.
More than 30,000 Britons die each year because of obesity. In England, 47 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women are overweight, with around a fifth being obese. The problem costs the Health Service £500million in consultations, drugs and other therapies.
Life insurance companies are considering increased premiums for overweight clients because so many are dying prematurely from heart disease and cancer. Cancer Research UK has warned that obesity will soon cause more cancers than smoking.
Just as alarming is the rapid growth in childhood obesity. Among six-year-olds, one in ten is classed as obese, rising to one in five among 15-year-olds.
The Government has warned that the current generation of schoolchildren could be the first to live shorter lives than their parents.
Twinkie tax.
We need to treat this like our founder treated tea.
Let's start with a 'fat tax' on Coca-Cola and Pepsi for Doctors only.
A Tiger is a Tiger and a Liberal is a Liberal.
When need to impose a quack tax on idiotic doctors who practice politics.
how long before McCain announces his support for this.
The AMA is a very liberal,Clinton supporting organization.
Anything they have to say I am not interested in hearing.
How does giving the government more money prevent people from getting fat? I don't get it.
Are they gonna tax the diet soda. too...?
you kow what we need? A Doctor Tax.. tax doctors into not ever wanting to regulate our eating habits.. if it were up to them we'd be eating snap peas and soy curd
Hey, how about a tax on Doctors who misdiagnose ailments too!
While they are at it, they should add a carbon dioxide tax on as well. Soda is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.
These companies will stop at nothing to poison both us and our world.
Food police alert.
How about a tax on sedentary jobs?
I'll bet people sitting on their fat arses all day contributes more to obesity than pop.
Before all the diet, low fat, and "lite" food was foisted on us, maybe 1 in 20 people were obese; now it's the other way around!
Speaking of McDonalds - many moons ago they had really good fries. Then the likes of these people got ahold of them.
I had some of their fries the other day and they tasted like cardboard.
Doctors can be fascists too.
Hehehe.
Now that they get it, how long until they and their DNC allies admit that income taxes are destructive to achievement?
How about a 'pleasure tax' on pretty much everything? I love to read, nickel and hour. TV? That's at least 50cents an hour, no value there. And we will set a really good government agency to 'audit' your time. Unaccountable time will have a rate of 30cents an hour, just to cover all the bases in case you are REALLY having a good time.
That will provide a boost to the Social Security program. In the mean time, let the little porkers pay for us.
>>>Before all the diet, low fat, and "lite" food was foisted on us, maybe 1 in 20 people were obese; now it's the other way around! >>
Yes, because WHOLE food satisfies. High chemical/preservatives OTH, doesn't. Therefore we eat twice as much (twice as much calories) and we gain weight.
Im against regulating it but for the sake of taste alone! this is a good idea ;)
The government will get fat so people don't have to do it for themselves. ; )
Commish calls for QUACK TAX on Doctors.
There should be a "stupid Doctor Tax" instead.
How is it economically fair for them to charg eme a tax for my cola of choicec when I am a short skinny guy who most definitely is not fat?
Why should I pay a 'fat tax' when I am not?
(Not meaning that there should be a 'fat tax', but that the whole premise is insane and stupid!)
This will, no doubt, be very bit as successful in ending negative behavior as did the "sin tax". /sarcasm off
ROFL
I think there's another contributing factor: WIC. How many of us have been behind the welfare recipients with a cart of Twinkies and Doritoes at Walmart and SAMS Club? I think WIC should provide food stamps based on the government food pyramid. If it's the right way to eat, why don't we enforce it on wards of the state?
First they came for the smokers.....
When they started with the ciggarette tax which was supposedly going to help pay for medical care for all of the smokers who were straining the medical care system and causing health care costs to rise (Sure OK) Rush was the first to say, watch out they're coming after your food next. Many thought that Rush was just illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Well looky, looky here come the food police.
How about taxing doctors opinions when they venture outside their area of expertise?
sarcasm..
sw
Why don't they just ban the purchase of sugary, fatty, unhealthy foods using money paid by public assistance?
Read this as "Jacobsen is looking for another source of funding."
Remember, this is the guy that fired those neatly spaced media bombshells every couple of months all through the 90's about Chinese food, movie popcorn, and that.
Pure grandstanding. No science in sight for miles around.
I was in Amsterdam for almost a week and in that time saw 4 or 5 locals that were obviously obese. The other dozen or so haystacks were British tourists.
If you can reasonably walk to a destination, walk. Or bike. Really no good excuse for driving 3 blocks to the store to pick up a bar of soap, if nothings broken.
Give me a break. I can't tell you how many overweight people I know who like nothing better than home cooking. They do not eat out and do not drink soda, but man, pass them smashed taters!
fastfood and cokes bad...
gay lifestyle good...
Why would anyone listen to these idiots?
I agree. Now that Smoking and alcohol have been "a-taxed" the nanny-state commies will go after any food outside of kelp.
The next in line will be a "Couch potato" tax on TVs and remote controls.
Eventually, we will all have to wear a helmut and an air bag body suit just to leave our property.
The goal of Big Government is to make us all criminals.
That is just all kinds of wrong...
Quick someone post a pic of Jessica Alba before this thread explodes or melts people's eyes from viewing Cobra's post...
You see, in Britain, where they have tax-funded health care, they have the right and obligation to tax bad things. But, here in the USA, we have no right to tax alcohol, tobacco, sweeteners, and fast food because we pay for our own health care. But, since MedicAid and MediCare are so widely used now, they will use that as a reason to tax it.
Lord I'm tired of being every frustrated soccer moms hobby, get your own lives and leave us to ours.
How about a "quack tax" on the good doctors?
Well I for one don't let my CoCola pollute the atmosphere and add to global warming! I take in all the CO2 fumes my CoCola emits.
Now the Health Nazis have done quit preachin' and gone to meddlin'. I'm 80 yars old, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, am not overweight, and still am in great shape. I regularly drink two bottles of Co-Cola daily (sometimes three).
Because I've given up all those worldly sins and pleasures, I depend on my two bottles of CoCola per day for all the necessary nutriments and ingrediments and plain old sinful pleasures. And now some unknown doctors have banded together to put a tax on my sole gastronomical pleasure. WHAT DOCTOR'S GROUP IS THIS IDIOTIC?
NO CoCola Tax is my motto, now and forever!!
NO CO-COLA TAX. DOWN WITH MEDDLESOME DOCTOR'S GROUPS.
/s but they can keep their grubby mitts off my Co-Cola.
Great point. Making the government fatter isn't gonna do squat to keep people from getting fat!
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