The fat tax is already here.
Every few months the idea of a "fat tax" - charging more for fatty foods, inevitably, in order to "cure" fat - comes around and gets spun by op-ed columnist hacks who've just come off flights seated next to fat people as the greatest thing ever. Why, just tax fat people! Problem solved.
Thing is, there is already a fat tax. It's called being fat.
I just read an article regarding a smoking ban and naturally the idea of doing something to those darn fat people who cost us so much came up in the comments. The wheels started turning. Think about it: being fat already costs more. We pay more, in money, for things such as clothing and definitely for health care (if you can actually get it in the first place.) On the clothing part, women get hit particularly hard.
And we pay more, psychologically and emotionally, for being fat. I'm not looking for pity here - just stating that from a societal level being fat "costs" more as well.
So whenever talk of a fat tax comes around, I think it's in our best interests to point out that even though we're supposedly "burdening" our health care system just by existing, we're already paying more than our fair share.
Fat War Misses a Couple of Marks | Out of the Mouths of Babes
Posted by paul on January 18, 2007| Joycelyn |
January 18th, 2007 | Link |
Not to mention that we are
Not to mention that we are paid less than slender people and promoted less often, no matter how good our skills. We have less choice in romance and friendship and even small children fear becoming like us.
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| goddess |
January 19th, 2007 | Link |
"Fat tax" immediately makes
"Fat tax" immediately makes me think of "poll tax," which Wikipedia describes as (among other things), "a tax formerly required for voting in parts of the United States that was often designed to disenfranchise African Americans, Native Americans, and whites of non-British descent." What is happening here???
Jude
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| kali |
January 19th, 2007 | Link |
Ugh! I can't believe I
Ugh! I can't believe I actually came up with and typed the following but I bet people believe this: The societal effects of being fat are there because being fat is immoral, lazy, unsightly, etc. The tax is for the burden placed on the healthcare system and goverment. It won't "cure" fat but why should good skinny taxpayers (or their premiums) have to help pay for Unhealthy McFattie's diabetes, cancer, heart disease and stomach stapling? They chose to be/stay fat.
I hate people sometimes.
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| jth298 |
January 19th, 2007 | Link |
Well I'm not a smoker but I
Well I'm not a smoker but I oppose the smoking ban... I'm not fat and I oppose fat taxes too. There is something fundamentally illiberal (in the correct meaning of the word) about the ecroachment of government into our personal decision making.
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| tarahj65 |
January 19th, 2007 | Link |
This isn't a fat tax, it's a
This isn't a fat tax, it's a junk food tax. It is insulting to me that it's called a fat tax because frankly my skinny friends are buying more junk food than me and my fat friends. The assumption here is that fat people are the only people who consume this stuff and I don't think WE should accept that assumption.
That's not to say that I agree with putting an extra tax on junk food, it does seem "big brotherish". I do agree with smoking bans though. The person sitting next to me eating fries (fat or thin) will have no effect on my health...smoking will, and has.
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| Meowzer |
January 19th, 2007 | Link |
Tarah, I totally agree with
Tarah, I totally agree with you. A "fat tax" would be if they literally taxed you for your weight, not for what you eat. But the fact that it's called that gives thinner people an excuse to blame us for the tax, because if we ostensibly weren't such out-of-control junk-food-junkies we wouldn't be fat, and thus nobody would have anything to worry about. (After all, thin people never suffer the sequelae of their "bad" eating habits, noooo.)
However, I don't think that's what Paul is talking about in this particular post. I think he's talking more about what it costs to be fat in general.
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| goddess |
January 20th, 2007 | Link |
Once again, the rebuttal to
Once again, the rebuttal to this kind of nonsense is to reveal the facts: fat people live as long as, if not longer than, thin people. And it's certainly not because fat people receive better medical care than thin ones do! But how to make this known when it looks like foolishness in the face of everything people are used to hearing?
I also wonder if there have been any studies of what people really eat. Wouldn't that be revealing, if we could actually get honest answers.
Yes, Meowzer, I do think Paul is talking about the price of being fat in our world.
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| twincats |
January 20th, 2007 | Link |
I don't have a huge problem
I don't have a huge problem with taxing junk food in the abstract (inasmuch as paying more for something I don't buy much of in the first place won't impact me much since I bake like a fiend) but what will be done with the money? Besides more bogus research, that is? Okay, that was a bit snarky, but seriously, I doubt it will be anything that actually benefits fat people in any satisfactory way. Like, say, fat acceptance...
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| Meowzer |
January 20th, 2007 | Link |
Heck, I don't care if they
Heck, I don't care if they want to tax the purchase of anything that's not an absolute survival necessity, as long as the proceeds actually fund something like national health care. But if all they're going to do with the cash is purchase more billboards reminding me that I suck as a human being, I'm not interested.
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| Pugged |
January 21st, 2007 | Link |
Where I work they are now
Where I work they are now offerring the patch to smokers for free. They have this stupid stuffed piece of celery that they are parading around to encourage us all to eat more healthily. In our meeting last week, smokers were actually singled out and 'encouraged' to get the patch for 'free.' As we move closer to hosting the 2010 Olympic games I wonder when they are going to start to offer the fat people free jenny craig meals, gym memberships or bariatric surgery. I find it all rather disgusting.
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| Meowzer |
January 21st, 2007 | Link |
This micromanaging by
This micromanaging by employers of people's personal lives really frosts me. Not only is it none of their damn business what people do outside of the office as long as no laws are broken, in many cases it's going to have the opposite effect of what they desire. Don't they realize that some people are going to want to smoke even more if you throw patches in their faces?
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| DeeLeigh |
January 22nd, 2007 | Link |
Cheers, Meowzer. Back when
Cheers, Meowzer. Back when people had "jobs for life" with pensions and perks, that paternalistic attitude made a little more sense. Now, we're free agents. If they don't need us, we're laid off or fired. If we don't like a job, we (can hopefully) leave. If employees are getting their work done, employers have no business telling them how to live their lives outside of the office. If someone is spending two hours on smoking breaks a day, that might impact their work, and their employer would be justified in commenting. However, what people do with their bodies on their own time is their business.
If employers really want to be helpful, then they should make it possible for people to work fewer hours so they have more time to take care of themselves and their families.
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