Betting HE isn't one of them!
Posted on 04/18/2005 5:44:13 AM PDT by FlyLow
Since 1964, thanks to taxes, lawsuits, social pressure and prevention programs, the percentage of Americans who smoke has dropped from 65 percent to 25 percent. It's time to tackle obesity just as aggressively.
Libertarians, the fast-food industry and advocates for the obese object to "nanny-statism" and discriminatory incentives to fight the obesity epidemic. But in all likelihood, we'll need negative as well as positive pressure to slim America back down to a healthy size.
Lawsuits like the one pending against McDonald's aren't my preferred solution — they'll likely benefit trial lawyers more than consumers — but taxes on the fat content of food would be useful, and so would higher insurance premiums for those who are overweight.
The life insurance industry does impose higher premiums for the obese, but not as large as it does for smokers. And the health insurance industry generally provides lower premiums on a limited basis only as a reward for participation in diet-and-exercise programs.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Take your pick but smoking is not a good thing. I pledge my stomach in the fight against obesity. We aren't going to defeat the Chinese and N Koreans with a bunch of Sumo wrestlers.
i don't see the epidemic! I look throughout the school at the kids and only see a handful of over weight ones. I look at the people on the street and they look about the same as they always did! Maybe its not that people are getting fatter, but society lowered the bar due to the media and hollywood and what THEIR version of the PERFECT weight is.
Naa! Just more Naaanny State drivel from Jewish World Review. As a Jew I can say this without being called anti-semitic: Good intentions do not justify confusing social justice with socialism.
All too often, Jews tend to blindly assume more government is a good thing because of an all too common presumption that government is, in and of its self, good.
Yes, people do live longer and have lower medical costs if they are not obese.
No, Mortie - that doesn't justify more Nanny State intrusion into our lives.
There are cures worse than the disease, and fat taxes are an excellent example of such "cures".
What Mort is missing is two points. One, a person can become fat without consuming large amounts of fat and sugar. Daily calorie intake and output is what determines body weight in most cases except for those with metabolic problems. Two, it is recommended that a healthy diet contain 30% fat. You body needs a certain degree of lipids to stay healthy. That fat should be more of the monounsaturated variety but saturated fat is not automatically unhealthy if it is kept in a reasonable range. By taxing "unhealthy" fat everyone would have to pay taxes based on saturated fat content. This is would be for everyone not just fat people. Another draw back is that people will tend to turn to low fat processed foods that are loaded with sugar and can be less healthy than having eaten the full fat original version.
JWR isn't a Nanny State site. It does, however, carry Nanny-Staters from time to time as part of a fair and balanced approach.
Mort Kondracke is a Nanny Stater from way back. He's one of the last of the decent old-school Democrats, so such a column is to be expected out of him.
Yup, and we could never have defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japan with a bunch of chain-smoking soldiers led by lardbutts like Churchill and FDR. Oh, wait a minute... maybe we did...
Ever notice that when liberals want to force a change in human behavior the method of choice is another tax. Conservatives who want to encourage a certain type of behavior almost always prefer a tax break or cut instead.
Well, it's a nice rationalization, but the only reason people are overweight is because they ate more calories than they burned.
It is unfathomable to me to see so much crap from so many about something so freaking simple. If you want to lose weight, eat less than you burn. It aint freakin rocket science.
Indeed, it is precisely because it is so simple that such lunacy prevails. It takes a smart and moral populace to handle the simple truth. But we are not good and we are not smart and so we are treated to crap like this from Morton Kondracke. Go to hell, Mort. You whore yourself out, in a few hundred words, as the pure voice of the dark side, the devil, and the laughably dumb all at once.
Nutrition is like politics and religion -- conversation goes ugly early. Weight loss, on the other hand, is far from politics and religion. Weight loss is pure, simple, utterly proven, and proved again, science. I say it again, with more feeling this time: Go to hell, Morton Kondracke! You are not fit to be an american with such rubbish as this article.
We had a workable anti-obesity program going when I was a kid back in the 50s. We used to just beat the **** out of fat kids whenever we saw em....
like the tobacco suits?
This means jackpot fees and a trust fund that is squandered into a truth campaign that is so ridiculous that it makes kids WANT to smoke because it makes smoking the ultimate forbidden fruit.
There are lawmakers in MA that want to stop All You Can Eat Buffets. Apparently in America, no one should eat, as much as they want.
There are lawmakers in MA that want to stop All You Can Eat Buffets. Apparently in America, no one should eat, as much as they want.
Exactly. Marilyn Monroe wasn't today's super model's 94 lbs.
Betting HE isn't one of them!
When I was in school in the 80's, it was still a stigma to be overweight. In my middle school, we only had one person that was overweight. As with everything in our society now, nothing is our fault. Lots of money has been spent on proving that being overweight is genetic, therefore not anyone's fault. Live a seditary life style + eat too many calories = overweight.
Children should be taught at school to rat on their playmates and relatives so we can get a hold on this grave problem. There should be no eating within 10 feet of any building and we should eliminate school breakfasts and lunches, businesses need to cut out lunch hours too, they just encourage eating. We need to get hysterical about this until we get something done.
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