Why do we pay so little to make ourselves fat?
Here are some sobering statistics. If you are an American over the age of twenty, you’ve got a two in three chance of being either overweight or obese. That’s right, 66% of us are fatsos in fact or in the making. And we’re getting tubbier; 33% of those between six and nineteen are moving more bulk than they should, and the rest of us know what will happen to them when gravity takes over.
I’m not preaching; I need to lose five pounds to get back to the “normal” range for people of my height. But I do want to suggest that it’s time to resurrect the “junk food” tax that was proposed and scrapped. In typical American fashion, that proposal was quashed, not because it was a bad idea but because the fast food industry peddled fear. We were told that the government wanted to double the price of our Big Macs—not a bad idea, come to think of it—and take away our “freedom of choice.” It didn’t take much given to convince tax-averse Americans to get up in (flabby) arms to oppose the bill. (To be fair, fifty-three percent of those polled still support a tax on soft drinks).
Mainly, though, the public will to tax pudgy grub passed because we’re so deeply in denial. Two-thirds of Americans are portly to corpulent, yet the same percentage of Americans tells pollsters that they personally are in neither category. A mere 4% admit to obesity, a belief out of accord with data by nearly 800%.
A recent trip to the grocery store tested my arterial blood-carrying capacity by making me angry as I traversed the cereal and beverage aisles. Major cereal brands by Kellogg, Post, and General Mills were on sale—or so I thought. Actually, only the sweet stuff was on sale; if you wanted to buy just toasted bran flakes, un-sugared Chex, or plain old shredded wheat you had to pony up the full price. So explain to me why it costs more to not add sugar or food coloring that would make an LSD user go into rehab.
I was already stoked by the time I got to the drinks aisle. I don’t drink soda—more because I simply don’t like the taste than for any moral reason. I do, however, enjoy seltzer water—the plain stuff without the god-awful flavored stuff concocted by mad scientists. I pay 79 cents for a store brand two-liter bottle. I was shocked to find that a sale had pushed the price of Coke below that of generic seltzer.
The junk food industry operates like the drug dealers of a crime syndicate. The Center for Disease Control estimates it costs $40 billion per year to treat obesity-related problems, a lot of which comes from taxpayer (stretch pants) pockets. Americans are like junkies who get their first taste for free and then steal to support their habits. Folks, it’s just wrong that junk food is cheaper than wholesome comestibles. We need to tax the hell out of this crap. Barring that, maybe we ought to dismantle the CDC, make eating part of the war on drugs, and let the Drug Enforcement Agency take over.
Here are some sobering statistics. If you are an American over the age of twenty, you’ve got a two in three chance of being either overweight or obese. That’s right, 66% of us are fatsos in fact or in the making. And we’re getting tubbier; 33% of those between six and nineteen are moving more bulk than they should, and the rest of us know what will happen to them when gravity takes over.
I’m not preaching; I need to lose five pounds to get back to the “normal” range for people of my height. But I do want to suggest that it’s time to resurrect the “junk food” tax that was proposed and scrapped. In typical American fashion, that proposal was quashed, not because it was a bad idea but because the fast food industry peddled fear. We were told that the government wanted to double the price of our Big Macs—not a bad idea, come to think of it—and take away our “freedom of choice.” It didn’t take much given to convince tax-averse Americans to get up in (flabby) arms to oppose the bill. (To be fair, fifty-three percent of those polled still support a tax on soft drinks).
Mainly, though, the public will to tax pudgy grub passed because we’re so deeply in denial. Two-thirds of Americans are portly to corpulent, yet the same percentage of Americans tells pollsters that they personally are in neither category. A mere 4% admit to obesity, a belief out of accord with data by nearly 800%.
A recent trip to the grocery store tested my arterial blood-carrying capacity by making me angry as I traversed the cereal and beverage aisles. Major cereal brands by Kellogg, Post, and General Mills were on sale—or so I thought. Actually, only the sweet stuff was on sale; if you wanted to buy just toasted bran flakes, un-sugared Chex, or plain old shredded wheat you had to pony up the full price. So explain to me why it costs more to not add sugar or food coloring that would make an LSD user go into rehab.
I was already stoked by the time I got to the drinks aisle. I don’t drink soda—more because I simply don’t like the taste than for any moral reason. I do, however, enjoy seltzer water—the plain stuff without the god-awful flavored stuff concocted by mad scientists. I pay 79 cents for a store brand two-liter bottle. I was shocked to find that a sale had pushed the price of Coke below that of generic seltzer.
The junk food industry operates like the drug dealers of a crime syndicate. The Center for Disease Control estimates it costs $40 billion per year to treat obesity-related problems, a lot of which comes from taxpayer (stretch pants) pockets. Americans are like junkies who get their first taste for free and then steal to support their habits. Folks, it’s just wrong that junk food is cheaper than wholesome comestibles. We need to tax the hell out of this crap. Barring that, maybe we ought to dismantle the CDC, make eating part of the war on drugs, and let the Drug Enforcement Agency take over.
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