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The Forum > Article Comments > Fighting obesity requires a war on poverty > Comments

Fighting obesity requires a war on poverty : Comments

By Chin Jou, published 15/6/2015

Notably, the authors of the survey emphasised that 'the adjusted odds of obesity or overweight increased significantly in relation to decreased levels of household income'.

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High or higher taxes on junk food will not solve the problem of obesity. It will only penalise the poor for their choices.

Some folk choose to eat junk rather than healthy foods even if the latter is cheaper. Maybe this is a function of their education, or lack thereof. Or maybe it is habit forming.

If one holds that many junk food eaters are irrational then taxing their meals will not modify their eating habits. By virtue of their irrationality they will not be swayed by taxes.

Instead what may happen is that they will spend less on their health and even less on their children.

Rather that penalise folk for poor choices I suggest reward them (through subsidies) for making good choices.
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Monday, 15 June 2015 10:32:55 PM
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Hi Jonathan,

Are you suggesting that 'good foods' should be subsidised heavily and 'crap foods' should be taxed more heavily ?

i.e., make healthy foods cheaper, and crap foods dearer ?

Sound good to me. Just leave cask wine alone.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 15 June 2015 10:59:09 PM
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This article is complete and utter BS.

The author of this article is of the opinion that since low economic status and obesity is linked, then "solving" poverty will "solve" obesity.

There is a direct correlation between low intelligence and obesity. Dumb people eat trashy food and do not look after their health. Dumb people smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol to excess, and take illegal drugs. Dumb people rob banks and steal cars and get caught and go to jail. Dumb people live on welfare forever because they are too dumb to get a job and too dumb to keep one when they get one.

Dumb people live in dumb communities where they beat their wives and screw their kids. Their kids are dumb because they are born that way. They do not want to go to school and they make their schools into war zones when they are forced to go. Our Socialist teachers do not support NAPLAN testing because such universal testing will clearly display that races are not equal.

There is also a direct correlation between certain ethnicities and crime, obesity, substance abuse, and welfare. Our socialist teachers refuse to support NAPLAN testing because such testing will glaringly display that ethnicity and low educational attainment is also linked.

But hey, let's pretend that the truth does not exist and that everybody is equal. And when reality does not conform to ideology we will just keep chucking ever more taxpayer money trying to get equal outcomes between smart people and dumb people. And when that fails, just keep chucking more money at the problem. And when that fails.....

There is a whole social worker industry out there totally dependent on "solving" the problem of "inequality" and there is a whole political apparatus that is dependent upon increasing the number of dumb people to be supported by smart people. The problem is that dumb people keep breeding a lot faster than smart people, or they are being imported into smart societies in such numbers that sooner of later, prosperous societies that will not discriminate will eventually become poor dumb societies.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 16 June 2015 3:57:15 AM
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//If one holds that many junk food eaters are irrational then taxing their meals will not modify their eating habits. By virtue of their irrationality they will not be swayed by taxes.//

I would argue strongly that smokers are good deal less rational than people who are overly fond of pie-and-chips. But despite their irrationality, we know that increasing taxes on cigarettes lead to a decrease their consumption.

https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0146.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228562/

http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/13-5-impact-of-price-increases-on-tobacco-consumpt

Excessive drinking is also irrational. Once again, we know that increasing taxes will reduce alcohol consumption despite the irrationality of drinkers.

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap06a.pdf

http://www.bu.edu/today/2015/higher-alcohol-taxes-lead-to-less-binge-drinking/

http://www.cancer.org.au/content/pdf/ACDPA/110930-Final-ACDPA-PS-Alcohol-Taxation-position-paper.pdf

What makes you think increasing taxes on junk food won't reduce its consumption as well, in spite of the irrationality of people who like it?

I would like to eat eye fillet and lamb backstrap more often then I do but I haven't got the income and have to make do with cheaper cuts of meat. If you make, say, chicken nuggets (highly processed, extremely low in nutritional value) prohibitively expensive then poor people will have to make do with something more affordable like fresh chicken (an excellent source of lean protein, and at around $10/kg for thigh fillets an absolute steal).

//Rather that penalise folk for poor choices I suggest reward them (through subsidies) for making good choices.//

Oh good. Just throw some money at the problem, that'll fix it. If the Government wants to make my weekly shopping bill lower then I can't complain too much. I might be able to afford eye fillet more often. I'm just not sure that helping Toni afford eye fillet more often by reducing his fruit & veg expenditure is the best use of public health expenditure.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Tuesday, 16 June 2015 8:25:24 AM
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Eye Fillet ?! God, we used to dream of eye fillet. Sometimes the butcher used to let us look at it through the shop window. We had to make do with out-of-date sausage mince.
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 16 June 2015 10:05:38 AM
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What rubbish LEGO!

Obesity is a scourge across the board in our society.
Just look at all our overweight rich business people in both the public and private sectors (eg Gina Rhinehart). There are overweight people in all professions.
They didn't get where they are without some intelligence.

I find the 'dumbest' people in our society are those idiots who feel the need to constantly put others down for their life choices in order to feel big about themselves.
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 16 June 2015 7:38:48 PM
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