Should there be an obesity tax?

Potential-Monke

There's a strong independent woman called Lizzo who would like a word with ya!

Relax brah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702867#Comment_119702867

Or under populated depending on the study you reference

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702490#Comment_119702490

Unfortunately, community rating does make sense. Culture at a local level has a huge impact on how people live and how they die. Rates of things like obesity and smoking can be predicted by socio-economic status. Likewise healthy behaviours like healthy diet and exercise.

One of my lectures was involved in research where they gave people in a disadvantaged area, weekly delivery of fruit and veg. I think they wanted to see how availability of those foods affected consumption. They did follow up interviews and were shocked to find the participants say things to the effect of 'that's posh people food', and 'people like us don't eat that kind of food'.

Local culture matters.

Leg End Reject

Community rating for health insurance is just based on your age when you first take out insurance. If over 35 you pay more, and the difference increases if you're older.

It does not factor in socio-economic background, ethnicity or BMI. Where do people get this nonsense from? Link won't embed.

https://help.irishlifehealth.ie/hc/en-us/articles/115005819089-What-is-Lifetime-Community-Rating-LCR-

prunudo

There shouldn't be any increase tax, what they should clamp down on is the deals the supermarkets offer. While people should take personal responsibility, the supermarket chains don't help, packs of soft drinks for next to nothing, slabs of coke and fanta at the till or boxes of sweets being marketed as impulse buying. Sugar and junk food is addictive and the people laying out the stores know this.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702594#Comment_119702594

There is a sugar tax but go into any shop and the sugar free drinks cost the exact same as the sugary drinks

Same with alcohol free beers and wines,

There should be a tax on price gouging

triddles

Are heroin addicts not skinny? That seems like a reasonable unhealthy lifestyle.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Just regarding the frequent comments about Obese people consuming more. 'Im not sure I agree with that. A lot of this is simply down to food poverty, and its a generational thing which isn't helped by the need to have two parents working to maintain a household.

For example, even the most basic vegetable shop, is going to set you back close to a tenner for a bag of spuds, carrots, onions, what have you.

however, you can buy a meat feast or pepperoni pizza in Aldi for less than €1.20 each. Thats a calorie intake of approximately 1200 per pizza for almost zero cost, zero prep time for busy families. And if this is what kids are fed on the regular, this is what they learn food is all about.

There is no easy way to tackle it, excess taxes on these foods simply makes life harder for those on the razors edge of affording to live, yet as a society, we face the bill at a later date in terms of strain on the health system.

magicbastarder

teach cooking in school. mandatory till the junior cert.

Addmagnet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702439#Comment_119702439

But 'real' food is getting harder to find.

The food industry is only interested in selling the general public 'value-added' foods, i.e., foods that have had some kind of processing done to them. This means that there are more middlemen and more chances to charge more. Take the Tesco spuds example above, I'll bet the spuds are washed.

It's getting more difficult for me to source ingredients that I've used all my life. Meat is one example, haven't seen sweetbreads, pig's trotters, ox heart etc. for years, unless I go to the English Market here in Cork, and even then I often have to ask the butcher to get it in for me. Other ingredients are being whittled away and may still be available, but there's only one choice of brand; semolina, custard powder, skimmed milk powder. Of course, the supermarkets will tell you "there's no call for it" and I don't disbelieve them.

There has to be a reason to choose a healthier food over a highly processed, high in sugar/fat/salt food. It takes the same length of time to prepare and cook a breast of chicken as it does to cook some "chopped and formed" or "mechanically recovered meat" chicken nuggets.

Cost could be used as a carrot or stick to help people make better choices. Education would be better, but requires far more effort both individually and within society as a whole.

rolling boh

Places like garages now have you queuing surrounded by sweets and treats and most deli counters are similar to a chipper at this stage. I know people have a choice but far too many deals involve nothing more than junk food are out there .The number of special offers for healthier options is small in comparison to the treat stuff .

Teacher2020

Why are people so interested in what other people are doing with their lives? Just live and let live and get on with it. Some very bitter people in here, attacking obese people for the fun of it. As if obese people choose to be obese. Quite often there are other factors at play here. Mental health, binge eating disorder, lack of education etc. I don't personally know a single obese person that is happy with their situation.

maccored

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058266043/should-there-be-an-obesity-tax

we may as well go on for a Stupidity Tax, I Dont Like The Look Of That Lad Tax etc etc

An obesity tax wouldn't cut it. You'd need to go further, like mobile stomach-stapling clinics.

Concerned family members could turn up with their fatty in tow to get them fixed. Much like you can do with a dog or a cat.

Time poverty also plays into peoples diets, if your out of the house for 12 hours a day the temptation is always there to grab something quick when you get home which is often not too healthy an option. We have so little time at home due to work commitments that we have to batch cook at the weekends so we are not cooking for an hour every evening. Companies should be taxed heavily for every hour over the standard working week they may employees work as they are contributing to the issue. It might encourage them to hire more instead of trying to squeeze more out of their existing workers. I also agree that unhealthy foods should be made more expensive with taxation if its costing us more in the long run, but these extra taxes should be ringfenced for tackling this obesity and not just put in the general pot like other taxes which get squandered.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058266043/should-there-be-an-obesity-tax

It depends on whether there's any evidence that an obesity tax works?

There are plenty of cheap foods that can make you fat, even if you exclude the typical foods we think of.

Second, even when alcohol price rises, does that stop alcoholics or people who will buy it regardless?

If there's any evidence to suggest that it works, then fine. Otherwise, there's not much point implementing it.

Perhaps we should focus more on education and promoting exercise rather than taxes.

After all, there are many so-called TOFIs (thin on the outside, fat on the inside) that may not carry excess external fat but who are at a high risk of heart attacks and strokes due to internal fat / arteries laced with fats. It's not always visually fat people who are at this high risk.

Sunny Disposition

Was walking through a shopping centre the other day and if you look closely at a crowd these days there are loads of obese people. It's amazing how fat the country got over the last 30 years, being average weight makes you thin nowadays. There has been some awareness of this over the last ten years, but things don't seem to be improving.

Obviously there can't be an obesity tax, but there needs to be some new tactics to get people to face up to the issue. I don't know the answer, but it does seem like there have been efforts over the last few years, but no real success.

I wonder is the decline in smoking part of the reason for an increase in obesity.

magicbastarder

possibly a decline in smoking, but people walk and cycle far less than they used to.

i think the number of cars in the country went up by 150% in the same period that the population climbed by 60%.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703856#Comment_119703856

its 90% a food problem, people in reality lose weight so they can exercise , it doesnt really work the other way.

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702694#Comment_119702694

Wouldn't that be a nice world to live in where one could simply choose not to be obese.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702984#Comment_119702984

I still cook to the same recipe for spag bol, lasagne and others I learned in Home Ec during transition year at school. Definitely should be a thing for every kid.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703856#Comment_119703856

People diets also changed during that time. Which was probably more the factor. A lot of that is food companies.

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702408#Comment_119702408

The existing sugar tax is only on SSB = sugar-sweetened beverages.

Should it be extended to foods?

I think so, yes.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702694#Comment_119702694

That a bit like saying people choose to be addicted to things, or their phobias, or behavioral disorders.

Because some one don't have them, them, no one else should.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702694#Comment_119702694

Maybe do a little bit of research there bud. There are many medical conditions that can cause obesity. I'll point you in the right direction. See below.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/ss/slideshow-weight-gain-conditions

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119703429#Comment_119703429

When there are negative externalities associated with consumption, then it does affect everybody else.

Examples of negative externalities:

smoking in a crowded room

driving into a city

excessive alcohol consumption which imposes costs onto society

These justify State intervention, e.g. excise taxes, regulations, London congestion charge, etc.

Geuze

Should the sugar tax be extended to foods?

Should there be a tax on high-fat foods?

Overheal

Does the OP assume being fat is just a choice of laziness or whatever and that taxing people to punish them for being fat will make them not fat?

Lot of problems with the idea.

D3V!L

I think a window tax is long overdue. Worked in the middle ages.

Relax brah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119704442#Comment_119704442

Being fit and healthy is not reserved for the 1% - it’s harder to come up with excuses not to eat healthy than it is to defend it.

As already outlined in this thread, eatting healthy is not more expensive like many claim. It’s a burden on our health system and in the long run will help generations to come.

Im not assuming anything, I’m stating the obvious.