christine

You make a good point about cooking our own instead of buying prepared food.

And it is the point arry missed in his fat tax idea. He ignored the fact that people can make decadent unhealthy foods from the raw ingredients with a cookbook and a kitchen bypassing his tax idea as he isn't taxing the root cause but a symptom.

Two points;

1) You could either tax the raw materials (eg. sugar, salt etc)

2) You could look at what is causing obesity. Most people who are overweight do not become overweight from cooking, they become overweight from not exercising and eating a lot of junk food.

30 years ago, McDonalds did not exist in Australia. Only 30 years ago. Now, they're common place, along with many other fast food restaurants. Obesity has also significantly risen during this time period.. could there be a connection? I think the other major contributor, ironically, is our wealth. Our ability to afford to eat- out and buy luxury food items.

A fat tax will not guarantee 'no obesity ever again', but it will encourage all people to eat healthy food by providing a disincentive to buy unhealthy food. If the chocolate bar at the corner store costs $5 instead of $2, less people will buy it, less often. I think that would be a good outcome. These foods used to considered 'treats'.

On my income, or rather on what's left over for me, they are still treats.

Which brings us to the point that such pricing unfairly hits the low income earner, and is going to make no difference to a rich person who is also obese. The way ahead would be to ban the fast food outlets but as that is clearly impractical, if not impossible (it's politically impossible !), then changing the type of food offered along with education seems to me to be the best option, Already some of the FF joints are offering healthier alternatives as are school tuck-shops.

"Get 'em young an' yer've get 'em" could be the slogan of the Food Reformers.

arry,

Who is forcing you or anyone else to eat at McDonalds?

When you are being forced to eat at McDonalds who is forcing you to eat high fat, high calorie items on the menu?

I'm glad i don't live in your neighborhood, where someone else determines where/what/how much you eat.

Hmm yes well health education is already happening in schools and I guess perhaps forcing fast food companies to offer healthy choices would be a good solution in the interim.

i take your point samuel, a fat tax is unfair to poorer people and would have less effect on wealthy people's diets and that would be unfair. But then again, one could argue that it is good if they are not able to afford it. if something is unfair, but the result of the unfairness is actually good for you, is it ethical? :S

I think we've already extensively covered the 'choice' argument kookaburra. I do have 1 question for you though, do you believe we should legalise heroine? Afterall, who is forcing you or anyone else to take heroine?

arry,

Why force the fast food vendors to offer healthy choices? Let market forces do that. If they lose market share they will adapt or lose business. Lose enough business and they will go out of business.

Sounds like a good way to encourage people to pick the healthier choise. That's like incentives, tax breaks if you do something. Except it's a tax if you do something.

RawVegan



So you are in agreement that some Government may decide what is best for you and tax you at whim to modify your behaviour?

That being the case, If they decided to tax the consumption of all fruits and vegetables because they felt it better for you to eat red meat, you would be okay with that?