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> 30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved we

> 30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers Am I the only one finding this insulting, disgusting and backwards? People can be overweight for a multitude of reasons, some of which are: * Genetics * Medication * Health conditions * Smoking * Enviromental reasons * Lack of sleep * Age * Pregnancy * An inactive lifestyle coupled with high consumtion of lipids You want the government to spend less money in fat people? Make the government first invest money to avoid having an epidemic of overweight people. Some people have reasons other than stuffing their faces for being fat. It'd be impolite of me to say what I think of this person for implying there aren't.

jwdunne 12y ago
Medication resonates with me strongly. A lot of anti-psychotics increase appetite massively and are known to cause weight gain. I remember I was larger than I'd ever been and I'd got to that point very quickly. A "fat tax" could very well hit some of the most vulnerable citizens. People with severe, long-term psychotic illnesses who are prescribed neuroleptics long-term and are unable to work comes to mind. Perhaps making healthy foods more accessible than unhealthy foods is a better place to start. In the UK, for example, I could buy much more processed food stocked full with sugar than I can fresh vegetables for the same price.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
I can see something like this making a little sense in a country with 100% free health cared paid by taxes. If you have a disease you've caused yourself (by smoking, taking drugs, eating badly) why should everyone else have to help you through their taxes? That's not my opinion though, I don't think that's how it should work but I guess that's how he's looking at it.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Well, smokers already pay more (e.g, 80% of the price of a pack in France is taxes, and many other countries have similar rates). Sugar taxes are also appearing in some countries.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
Most fat people don't have reasons other than stuffing their faces for being fat. As evidence for this, consider the fact that obesity is skyrocketing while most of the things on your list are not changing.
- brotchie 12y ago
  I don't disagree, but I feel you're implying that obese individuals have complete "self-aware" autonomy over their decision making. I can pick an obese individual out of a crowd and go "That guy is fat because he eats too much. Dude... have some self control, stop eating so much, buy healthy food, do some exercise, learn to cook for yourself." Focusing on an individual, all these things may be true, and one may seek to place all the blame on that individual. However, take a step back and look at the cohort of obese people. When entire swathes of society are suffering from these problems, I don't think you can point your finger and blame every obese person for "stuffing their faces." What collective forces are acting on the majority of the population that results in them eating poorly, not exercising, putting on weight year after year, etc? The more and more I've read about psychology, self-awareness, political science, etc, and observed how the media and business interests clearly influence behavior, the less and less I feel it's a viable position to attribute individual blame to "fat people" "poor people" "homeless people" for what are society wide issues.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Society is an abstraction for the aggregated product of individual actions. It's an abstraction layer above the level of individual choice, much as thermodynamics is an abstraction layer above mechanics. Now lets suppose we do want to work on the societal abstraction level. The problem is that the proportion of people making a certain individual choice has gone up. One solution is a pigouvian tax to disincentivize this choice. I agree you can't blame every single obese person for eating too much. You can only blame the vast majority of them - a small fraction really do have thyroid issues (and could potentially be excused from said tax).
    - estebank 12y ago

jwdunne 12y ago

Medication resonates with me strongly. A lot of anti-psychotics increase appetite massively and are known to cause weight gain. I remember I was larger than I'd ever been and I'd got to that point very quickly. A "fat tax" could very well hit some of the most vulnerable citizens. People with severe, long-term psychotic illnesses who are prescribed neuroleptics long-term and are unable to work comes to mind. Perhaps making healthy foods more accessible than unhealthy foods is a better place to start. In the UK, for example, I could buy much more processed food stocked full with sugar than I can fresh vegetables for the same price.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

I can see something like this making a little sense in a country with 100% free health cared paid by taxes. If you have a disease you've caused yourself (by smoking, taking drugs, eating badly) why should everyone else have to help you through their taxes? That's not my opinion though, I don't think that's how it should work but I guess that's how he's looking at it.

icebraining 12y ago
Well, smokers already pay more (e.g, 80% of the price of a pack in France is taxes, and many other countries have similar rates). Sugar taxes are also appearing in some countries.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

Most fat people don't have reasons other than stuffing their faces for being fat. As evidence for this, consider the fact that obesity is skyrocketing while most of the things on your list are not changing.

brotchie 12y ago
I don't disagree, but I feel you're implying that obese individuals have complete "self-aware" autonomy over their decision making. I can pick an obese individual out of a crowd and go "That guy is fat because he eats too much. Dude... have some self control, stop eating so much, buy healthy food, do some exercise, learn to cook for yourself." Focusing on an individual, all these things may be true, and one may seek to place all the blame on that individual. However, take a step back and look at the cohort of obese people. When entire swathes of society are suffering from these problems, I don't think you can point your finger and blame every obese person for "stuffing their faces." What collective forces are acting on the majority of the population that results in them eating poorly, not exercising, putting on weight year after year, etc? The more and more I've read about psychology, self-awareness, political science, etc, and observed how the media and business interests clearly influence behavior, the less and less I feel it's a viable position to attribute individual blame to "fat people" "poor people" "homeless people" for what are society wide issues.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Society is an abstraction for the aggregated product of individual actions. It's an abstraction layer above the level of individual choice, much as thermodynamics is an abstraction layer above mechanics. Now lets suppose we do want to work on the societal abstraction level. The problem is that the proportion of people making a certain individual choice has gone up. One solution is a pigouvian tax to disincentivize this choice. I agree you can't blame every single obese person for eating too much. You can only blame the vast majority of them - a small fraction really do have thyroid issues (and could potentially be excused from said tax).
  - estebank 12y ago