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Britain is the fattest nation in Europe, and it's slowly killing us. So is it time to tax the fat? Would putting up the price of junk food, high in sugar and fat, cut obesity rates in the same way as a tax on cigarettes has helped reduce smoking? Panorama travels to Denmark - the first country in the world to implement such a tax - to see how it's working there, and to the US, where a proposal to tax sugary drinks like Coca Cola has met with fierce opposition.
Could a fat tax here help the NHS to afford the ever-rising cost of treating obesity-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease? Reporter Shelley Jofre puts the idea to the Health Secretary, and to families who would have to pay more for junk food.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"Tax the fat"(?)
(32 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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But that would include cake!
Posted 13 years ago # -
But if you eat less cake you wouldn't have to cycle so much...!
Posted 13 years ago # -
On the subject of Coca Cola, I've a friend who went to Austin, Texas to do his Ph.D. Out there all the soft drinks don't have sugar (as in the white crystally stuff sucrose) in them, but HFCS syrup which is some sort of bypodruct of subsidised industrial corn farming. If you want "our" Cola, made with sucrose sugar, you have to go to the "health food" store and ask for Mexican Cola (the Mexicans being smart enough to avoid that HFCS poison)
Posted 13 years ago # -
Posted 13 years ago #
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But if you eat less cake you wouldn't have to cycle so much...!
There's the problem. I wan't to eat more cake and cycle more!
Kirst is getting at a point though - I don't want to see a tax on things like Jelly Babies or the other high-sugar, portable treats that cyclists rely on to keep us where we're going. We shouldn't have to pay for some people's inability to do the maths of calories in > calories out = weight gain.
Posted 13 years ago # -
other high-sugar, portable treats that cyclists rely on to keep us where we're going. We shouldn't have to pay for some people's inability to do the maths of calories in > calories out = weight gain.
Thats not exactly healthy or true, I rely on Toast and Butter and Milk with a cheeky shot of Coffee for the stimulant effect. I guess you mean as emergency calories but I find myself unable to eat on the bike, have to stop and admire the view and find the rolls and cheese. However I will strenuously resist any suggestion of taxing the great Tunnocks Caramel Wafer.
[ontopic]You have to be kidding me, make something as cheap as you can and then tax it?[/ontopic]
Posted 13 years ago # -
I rely on Toast and Butter and Milk with a cheeky shot of Coffee for the stimulant effect
I find those tend to make a bit of a mess of my back pocket! Yes I'm referring to on-the-bike treats. I don't eat much on the road, but for a low-cost, no-nonsese, easy to ingest sugar hit on the move I find Jelly Babies cannot be beaten. 68p of such spent can also buy you a lot of bike club friends :)
Personally I go for porridge with golden syrup before Saturday morning rides, I assume the latter will be in line for a tax being nothing more than processed and concentrated inverted sugar syrup all washed down with a dark and hot treat from Mr Bialetti the Mokka Express
Posted 13 years ago # -
A couple of years ago I cycled around Arran. I had porridge for breakfast, let it go down for 45 minutes or so before heading out, and was absolutely on fire for the morning's hills. If they start taxing Irn Bru, chocolate biccies and bananas, I'll really be knackered.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I have porridge too, but we don't need to worry about our sweets as Tories are having processed food manufacturers to advise on healthy eating and drinks industry to advise on safe drinking. Can they get any more transparent in the feathering the nests of their chums from the Bullingdon Club?
Posted 13 years ago # -
You never know Gembo, it might catch on and they might get cyclists and bike companies in to advise on cycling policy! (I jest of course :( )
Posted 13 years ago # -
"We shouldn't have to pay for some people's inability to do the maths of calories in > calories out = weight gain."
You think people are fat because they can't do sums?
Posted 13 years ago # -
"You think people are fat because they can't do sums?"
Mmm that could become an interesting discussion.
'Blame the victim in a society surrounded by food manufacturers and advertising.'
'Weight, fitness etc. are personal responsibilities.'
'Diets don't work.'
'Takes quite a lot of exercise to eliminate the effects of a cream bun.'
Food and what/why people eat are complex issues.
'Exercise' and why people do/don't are also never simple.
People on this forum cycle for many reasons. Some will do so at rate 'above average' and will need 'extra' food. I'm sure others will still wish they were a bit lighter.
I'm sure we are all healthy and happier than if we didn't ride bicycles. (Well I hope so.)
One news item yesterday was about (previously) pregnant women saying that they weren't given enough advice about weight gain. Midwifes admitted it was a difficult thing to talk about. It seems (some) mothers are comparing themselves with 'celebrities' who 'get their figure back quickly'.
Posted 13 years ago # -
The really bizarre thing is that they give you this grant for 'health in pregnancy' - about £200 which is supposed to buy vegetables ans fruit - but it is completely separate from any advice about healthy eating/cooking etc. You get that stuff elsewhere, but not linked to the grant in any way that I could see.
But none of it matters now, since the grant was one of the first cuts....
Posted 13 years ago # -
You think people are fat because they can't do sums?
Perhaps. Or they can do the sums but don't act on what the answer is telling them. But then if it were that simple there wouldn't be a problem. I just don't want a Jelly Baby tax
Posted 13 years ago # -
Eating more calories than you burn off is how you get fat, not why.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think the why is that calories are cheap and tasty and often addictive and we humans are weak willed and eat, buy and do what the moving-picture box in the corner of the room tells us to, find it hard to fight our genetic disposition to eat like there's going to be a famine around the corner and and have grown to be slothful and lazy and let machinery do everything for us.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Kaputnik, fructose is just another form of sugar, I don't see how it can be more poisonous than the others. Could it be that in the US high intake of sugar is blamed for the obesity epidemic and soft-drinks are an easy target or that the low calory sweetener industry has an interest in stirring things up. I use high frutose drinks when I go cycling and they are recommended by every cycling magazine I've read.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I meant metaphorical poison! (although there are apparently schools of thought that HFCS may actually have ill-affects on the body, something about mercury according to the Oracle).
I don't think anyone has any issue with them being in "sports" or "energy" products, in fact, they are something of a requisite - why go to the bother of making your body break down sucrose into fructose and glucose when you can give it the raw ingredients directly. However Glucose and Fructose should not be the body's natural sources for the majority of its sugary needs - they should be from more complex molecules; sugars and starches.I think the main beef I was getting at with HFCS is how prevalent - in the US at least - it has become in all forms of processed food and that its cheapness is largely due to the fact that it's production is subsidised. That sort of thing could be construed as poisonous - morally or ethically anyway.
In days of yore, sugar was an expensive luxury, now it has been industrially turned into one of the cheapest food additives there is (after water and rocks)
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think fructose, or at least the stuff they make from corn syrup), is more heavily processed than your standard sucrose, so it is easier to absorb. This quick absorption rate probably leads to sugar highs and attendant lows, which means you have to eat the stuff more frequently to maintain blood sugar levels.
Fast absorption rates are ideal for when you're doing something vigorous like riding your bike, but probably less ideal for your weight when you have a sedentary lifestyle.
Caveat - I ain't no doctor.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"I ain't no doctor."
Double negative. Means you are a doctor.
150 points from GriffindorPosted 13 years ago # -
Sorry, should have put some sort of Deep South accent emoticon on that one.
To give it the full RP: "I am not a doctor".
Posted 13 years ago # -
It's the (short-term) reward thing as much as anything, though there will be an element of rubbish-processed-food-garbage-cheaper-than-healthy-food when examples of someone feeding their kids with a giant bucket of deep-fried mechanically recovered chicken-effect matter are invoked. Unless you know about or are used to the reward achieved by exercise you're going to see a packet of biscuits as the easier method of achieving it. The post-binge shame can be dealt with by another packet, perhaps of a different sort. If sugary, salty and lardy pre-packaged foodstuffs were heavily taxed it might result in a resurgence in home baking on the part of people desperate for cakes, as a means of fairly taxing the individual components of unhealthy food would be much more difficult to devise, probably effectively impossible without a blanket system such as wartime-style food-rationing. Without requiring the introduction of substances which act as emetics when ingested beyond a certain trigger level there's probably no way of weaning people off quick-fix cakefoods except by somehow converting them from gluttonous and lethargic existences to lives of pleasurable activity, preferably without creating even more iPod-zombie reflection-gazing gym addicts than there are at present.
Posted 13 years ago # -
kaputnik: "I meant metaphorical poison!" Yikes! <southern drawl like PS>Aint no doctor done never gonna cure ya of that taint.</southern drawl like PS> But you're right (and I bow to your chemistry smarts) the problem is that HFCS has become so cheap that it has effectively become a poison because of its gross overuse.
Posted 13 years ago # -
It's the processed nature of food that's a real problem. The food industry has found that there isn't much that doesn't taste better if you sneak a little bit of sugar/glucose/fructose into it; which is ideal, what with all this cheap sugar lying around. It's a bit of an eye opener to look at the ingredients of savoury pre-prepared food and see sucrose/glucose/etc in all sorts of dishes that the home cook wouldn't deam of adding sugar to.
[But why add sugar when you can add butter? Mmmmm... That's why I ride...]
Posted 13 years ago # -
Hmmm. You can easily ride off the energy gained from butter but there are still the arterial implications to consider.
What's the current thinking on butter? It seemed to have a bit of a boost recently (even amongst sporting persons, at least if my aquathlete sister and her personal-trainer husband can be considered representative thereof) after the whole vegetable-oil-spreads-are-virtually-PLASTIC! business...Posted 13 years ago # -
The current thinking on butter is that it's not deep fried enough
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think the why is that calories are cheap and tasty and often addictive and we humans are weak willed and eat, buy and do what the moving-picture box in the corner of the room tells us to, find it hard to fight our genetic disposition to eat like there's going to be a famine around the corner and and have grown to be slothful and lazy and let machinery do everything for us.
Those are some reasons for some people, but they're not the reasons I'm fat and they're not the reasons lots of other people are fat. The psychology of weight and diet and size and shape is complex and there are many factors at play. Some of them are obvious - laziness, greed (and I'll hold my hand up to both of those - I'll take a bottle of wine and a pizza over going for a run any day), lack of education, lack of knowledge about how to prepare cheap healthy meals. Other reasons are more complicated - lack of motivation to lose weight or eat right can be a result of many interacting factors.Posted 13 years ago # -
The psychology of weight and diet and size and shape is complex and there are many factors at play.
true 'nuff. and also physiology. I'm basically thin (but not skinny!) despite eating pretty much whatever I like, and having family members with all sorts of weight problems. Not 'fair' and I keep expecting it to change...we'll see how the post-baby fat goes, but haven't gained much (has been very interesting being part of a control group in study of weight-gain/obesity in pregnancy).
Posted 13 years ago # -
Those are some reasons for some people, but they're not the reasons I'm fat and they're not the reasons lots of other people are fat.
Kirst, I seem to recall reading that you notched up well over 3000 miles a year on your bike? I'll be lucky to reach 2500 for this year I think.
Posted 13 years ago #
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