Posted on 09/01/2009 12:25:13 PM PDT by FromLori
* Soaring obesity rates make changes imperative
* Taxes could reduce soft drink consumption
* Changing public transport routes could encourage grocers
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A strongly worded report on child obesity released on Tuesday recommends that state and local governments tax junk food and soft drinks, give tax breaks to grocery stores that open in blighted neighborhoods and build bike trails.
The report from the independent Institute of Medicine and National Research Council also suggests that governments limit television and video games in after-school programs, require restaurants to list calorie counts on their menus and open school playgrounds and athletic fields to communities.
"Childhood obesity poses a serious threat to health in the United States," it reads. The problem cannot be solved by the federal government and communities need to act, it adds.
"This is not a report that says 'this is what every community should do.' This is a menu of options," Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, who chaired the panel that wrote the report, said in a telephone interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
For every piece of legislation a legislator votes for her or she must pay $1,000 of his or her own money.
Tax Junk Food and Soda to make people’s lives miserable and help them understand who their master is! - I fixed the headline.
Oh yeah...Sure worked well with alcohol. Hardly anyone drinks anymore. (sarc)
Well is Zero insists on doing that we have to put all
Ben & Jerry ‘s products at the top of the tax list.
Wait, isn’t junk food consumed primarily by the “poor and underprivileged” who “don’t have access to healthier choices” and as such, since we all know who “are historically” poor and underprivileged, isn’t this just a tax on minorities?
Yeah right. As if taxes have ever reduced consumption. All they will do is make the fatties buy bigger bottles of pop and bigger bags of chips to get better value, and of course they will eat them all so they don't waste. The result? Even fatter kids, if that's even possible. They can barely walk as it is now.
Wow, I didn’t see that coming.. /s
the fattest out of shape porkers I have ever seen are members of congress. Maybe there should be a political pig tax.......
Tax Junk food because it’s bad and REGULATE Cheerios because they’re good for you.
Armed bad guy - Give me all your money punk. Well, actually, that banana you have there looks pretty good! Why don't we sit down and share it?
Don't kid yourself. They have a long ways to go with tobacco taxes, and they'll never run out of smokers to tax.
Smokes cost 11.25 a pack in Canada, and there's no shortage of smokers paying those taxes.
Now they are after us ex smokers who bought electronic cigarettes. Which just goes to show, the government was never interested in your health. They goofed however, naming tobacco is the root of all evil which they had to tax for our own good, instead of naming nicotine as the root of all evil. But they are working on correcting it.
Stupid parents pass down stupid things to their kids.
Lack or bad parenting creates criminal, poor behaving apathetic lazy children and adults down the line.
Fat people love to stuff their kids to death. I see it all the time. Should be a crime IMO.
SHOCKER!!!
Seriously, the reason they shut down those stores is they can't afford to keep them open. No amount of tax breaks is going to make up for the 30% loss.
If there were no medicare, there would be no helmet laws. That is, if each person bears ALL the credit, blame, and cost of his/her decisions, then there is concern but no shrill hysteria (like here) about risks, disease, and misfortune.
Obesity is a big problem, but even as the incidence of obesity rises, CONCERN about obesity is sky-rocketing —why?
Because as socialism advances, people are increasingly aware that their financial decisions are being made by LEGIONS of irresponsible people —chronic doughnut eaters, people who hate exercise, people who live in neighborhoods where kids can’t play outside.
And why blame the twig-munching recreational marathoner for his concern about subsidizing the laziness of sloths...?
Obesity is bad, but SOCIALISM is the actual cause of most of this worry; concern about obesity will vanish.
OBESITY WORRY = SOCIALISM WORRY
Just adopt Hong-Kong-like standards of public health care, and people will be perfectly blase if others eat nothing but bacon and drink whiskey.
“give tax breaks to grocery stores that open in blighted neighborhoods “
The tax breaks would have to be enough to offset the costs of shoplifting and robbery!
So groups like this should be honest. Taxes on junk food have nothing to do with public health or reducing obesity. It is nothing more than a revenue generation method under the guise of a improving public health.
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