

How fat went global - newsit
http://www.newsweek.com/id/175954

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kentosi
The author laments about how America is a society that prefers to break things
and then fix them later, the opposite of which should be to prevent things
from breaking in the first place.

Ironic, considering that his solution to obesity is to tax unhealthy foods,
which sounds very much like a bandaid solution to fix something that's already
broken.

Why not suggest things to actually prevent obesity in the first place? Like
fitness awareness campaigns bought to schools, health food awareness campaigns
in corporate settings and so on, just to toss a few ideas up.

~~~
divia
Why couldn't taxing unhealthy foods be preventative? It's not as though only
obese people are price sensitive. Nicholas Kristof at least thinks taxing can
be very effective:

 _Let’s break for a quiz: What was the biggest health care breakthrough in the
last 40 years in the United States? Heart bypasses? CAT scans and M.R.I.’s?
New cancer treatments?

No, it was the cigarette tax. Every 10 percent price increase on cigarettes
reduced sales by about 3 percent over all, and 7 percent among teenagers,
according to the 2005 book “Prescription for a Healthy Nation.” Just the 1983
increase in the federal tax on cigarettes saved 40,000 lives per year._

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/18kristof.html?ref...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/18kristof.html?ref=opinion)

That being said, I would be very skeptical of an unhealthy food tax,
especially on the federal level, because I don't particularly trust the
government to know what's healthy and unhealthy. Furthermore, such a measure
would make it even harder for them to change their recommendations in the face
of new evidence, for fear of looking stupid.

