Higher taxes on unhealthy foods, known as fat taxes, aren't such a bad idea.
It wouldn't be the first time the government has taxed something that has been deemed unhealthy, so this isn't a radical plan. This goes back to a health-care system that we all pay into with taxes. If the people are paying for health, then there is some onus on each individual to take care of their bodies as best they can so as not to overburden our health system.
Outlawing foods deemed unsuitable is certainly a step too far, but requiring people to pay a little extra for something that's bad for them is almost necessary.
I like my taxes going to things like helping sick people, but I also don't have a problem with people who are in and out of medical care for reasons like a poor diet paying more tax. Ideally the revenues raised would be going to health care, for both medical and preventative initiatives.
Instilling this fat tax is not a catch-all solution to countering unhealthy food, and it really has nothing to do with fat, or at least not fat exclusively. Food that is highly processed or ripe with refined sugar would be taxable, as would fast food.
Believe it if you want, but there are a number of people, like doctors and nutritionists and my sister included, who say that this generation of people is going to be the first since the Dark Ages to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.
I'm not sure if it's my generation they're talking about or if another generation has already started, but it doesn't give the kids nowadays much of a chance.
I'm also not the pristine example of healthy eating, but I certainly limit fast-food intake, add salt to absolutely nothing and just don't have a sweet tooth. I've never cared for sugary treats and remember reading a story about how a mother's diet, when a child is still in the womb, can have a pretty big impact on that child's future tastes. I guess I have my mom to thank for my apathetic attitude towards sugar.
There is really nothing wrong with discouraging people from making unhealthy choices. It's been happening with cigarettes for years. Smoking's not the biggest health concern we have anymore. Unhealthy people in general are now our greatest health problem.
It's not just smokers and alcoholics and drug addicts. So much of the food we eat is terrible for us, and we just don't know what goes into our food. For the most part, the produce we buy is acceptable, unless you have something against pesticides and genetic modification, so even our "natural" foods have some people raising alarms.
There's an attitude change that needs to take place with how we look at food. My grandparents grew up in a different time, but I have always been around food that is pumped with chemicals.
If one way to spark that culture shift is to introduce this fat tax, maybe we'll all be better for it, even if buying some of our guilty-pleasure foods hurts our wallets just a little bit.
