Should fat people be forced to get a lap band procedure?

This might actually be a viable solution... TAX the hell out of junk food! pay down the debt and your waist !

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/health/research/16nutr.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Nutrition: Rise in Soda Price Linked to Better Health
By RONI CARYN RABIN

New research provides evidence that proposed taxes on soft drinks may make young people healthier.

The study, which collected food intake data from 12,123 young adults for 20 years, found that with every 10 percent increase in the price of a two-liter bottle, people consumed 7 percent fewer calories from soda. They also took in fewer calories over all.

When people faced an even larger increase — $1 for a two-liter bottle of soda, comparable to a proposed tax in Philadelphia — they consumed 124 fewer calories a day, the study found. The lower soda intake was associated with a drop in weight of more than two pounds — and a lower risk for pre-diabetes. The studyappears in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Maureen L. Storey, senior vice president for science policy at the American Beverage Association, said taxing soda would be discriminatory as well as ineffective. “Taxes do not make people healthier,” she said. “Making smart education decisions about diet and exercise do.”

But the study’s lead author, Barry M. Popkin, an obesity specialist at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, said the study would help answer an important question.

“You always know that if you reduce the cost or increase the cost of something, consumption of that item will change,” Dr. Popkin said. “What we don’t know is whether you will buy something equally bad or worse. In this case, we found that people would get healthier.”

 

Our wise First lady says Hurry up on healthy food!

Food manufacturers need to work faster to re-formulate and re-package food so that it is healthier for kids, U.S. first lady Michelle Obama said on Tuesday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62F5IZ20100316

 

That's an interesting idea. Not only is it convenient to eat unhealthy (i.e. fast food, pasta, etc) but it is also less expensive than purchasing fresh produce or other health foods. I am not a fan of excessive taxation (or any at all), but by making health foods cheaper, obesity should decline.

As for the lap bands, I don't think that's an adequate solution for obesity. It's typical Western thinking. Address the result of a problem instead of targeting the problem from within.

 

why not tax the hell out of soda, pizza and cheeseburgers like we do smokes and booze

you'd only eat ONE if a 14 inch pizza was 30 bucks

 

i'm generally against excessive taxation but this TAX seems to be a WIN-WIN. gently "encourages" guys like you to make the right choices, and when you don't to curb your excesses ..while we encourage you to pay down your waist we also pay down the national debt..win-win in my book

 

Typical anarchist logic, taxation is the solution to nothing.

 

Wake up. The most morbidly obese organism in existence is the United States federal government, especially after 9/11 and the creation of that bloated POS fatherland security department.

Sin taxes are bullshit. They just sound good to the uninformed. Learn a little about tax policy or continue being a tool. The choice is yours.

 

isn't that the point of the article? more expensive junk food results in less consumption

 

wow what lofty goals what are you like 16 yrs old

 

only real men eat unhealthy