Ethics of a punitive junk food surtax

[slebetman]

Making people eat healthy food may actually statistically reduce the number of stupid people. At least make the population in general less stupid. I remember an episode of Jamie Oliver's School Dinners when his experiment first went online. It took just two days for the teachers to notice that once the students started to eat better the classes were quieter, students less sleepy and were actually paying attention in class. Sometimes I do wonder how much the crapiness in schools can be attributed to junk food.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Americans not eating their fucking veggies like we damn well should!

ATLANTA (AP) — Fewer than a third of American adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that's remained steady for more than a decade, health officials said Thursday. That's “well below'' the government's goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said Dr. Larry Cohen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



The diet survey, part of a huge federal health survey of every state, is based on responses from 305,000 adults in 2005. It indicates the country is only about halfway toward meeting its healthy eating goal three years from now.



“We're really concerned with the lack of success in meeting these national goals,'' said Cohen, who works in CDC's nutrition and physical activity division.



Although the rate of fruit and vegetable consumption has remained unchanged since 1994, health officials said the goal is still within reach.



“We have more work to do over the next few years,'' said spokeswoman Rachel Ciccarone.



Specifically the survey showed that 27 percent of adults ate vegetables three times a day, and about 33 percent ate fruit twice a day. A serving size is a half-cup for most fruits and vegetables, one cup for leafy greens.



Senior citizens were more likely than others to follow Mom's advice to eat more veggies, with slightly more than a third of that group eating three or more servings each day. Younger adults, age 18 to 24, ate the fewest vegetables. Nearly four-fifths of that age category scraped the veggies to the side of their plates — if they had vegetables on the plate at all.



Likewise, seniors also ate the most fruit, with nearly 46 percent eating two or more servings of fruit daily. People age 35 to 44 ate fruit the least, with fewer than 28 percent eating the recommended amount of fruit each day.



The federal agency said it doesn't know why people aren't eating more veggies or fruits. Cohen said future surveys will ask people what other foods they are eating.



Susan Krause, a clinical dietitian at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, said people are eating more refined sugars or choosing protein instead of fruits and vegetables.



“There's so much information out there and people get very confused. When they're looking at protein, they feel that's the solution when they're not looking at long-term health benefits,'' she said. “There's so many fabricated foods now and people are looking at convenience.''



Not only are fruits and vegetables lower-calorie, they also have minerals and fiber that help guard against chronic diseases and cancer, the CDC says.



The survey relied on people to report what they were eating. Telephone questioners asked how often they consumed fruit juice, fruit and vegetables. Although Hispanics ate the most fruits (37 percent) compared with blacks and whites, they ate the fewest vegetables, (about 20 percent). Whites, in contrast, ate the fewest fruits (31 percent) but the most veggies (28 percent).



Cohen said the CDC has been working on family and community programs to get more people to eat their veggies. The agency is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get more fresh produce into schools.



Krause said health officials should offer people simple options for getting fruits and vegetables in their diets, such as easy recipes in cooking classes and fruit smoothies or shakes in schools.



“If that's a way of getting it in, at least it's in the right direction,'' she said. “Certainly (whole) fruit is a better choice, but that could be the next alternative.''

I believe this is a scientific argument for at least rescinding taxes on fruits and veggies; either repeal of sales taxes (easier) or a tax deductible on income taxes (more complicated, therefore expect this to be implemented if anything).

<SNIP HUGE FUCK-OFF AD HOMINEM AND STRAWMAN IN ONE>

Fuck you too; good riddance, you cunt.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly Mike, I'm tired of listening to you act like a giant flaming douchebag throughout every single conversation in which you participate.

I'm tired of your endless "THE RAIN IN SPAIN DOES NOT IN FACT FALL MOSTLY ON THE PLANE YOU LIAR!" antics where you cleverly "expose" the blatant use of anything but dead-serious literal language by anyone you don't like.

Basically, I'm tired of you being a wannabe-bully crybaby shit here in your own little internet kingdom. I really should have left after that racism thread a couple of years ago where you misread the word "literal" as "liberal" and proceeded to brand me a "republitard", then threatened me with the mighty banstick when I pointed out that you needed to go back and read the fucking post again.

Awww, poor baby. I see I was 100% dead-on accurate with the "sore loser" remark. Every time some dipshit can't hold up his bag in an argument, he resorts to the old "you're a bully" line. Congratulations, moron. You've pulled a Darkstar. Do you honestly think people are going to read this thread and say "OMG, that Darth Wong is such a RAGING ASSHOLE because he called LordShaithis a sore loser"? I don't even recall this incident from two years ago that you're talking about, but if you're describing it as accurately as you tried to describe my position in the smoking thread, I'm sure I should apologize profusely, right?

But in any case, as an old ASVS slob, a guy here from the beginning, and the dude who tipped you off when that Virus X retard was posting "OMG I WANT TO BEAT UP MIKE WONG AND HIS WIFE AND KIDS" on his little journal, I'm out.

Because I called you a sore loser? What a pitiful whiny little bitch you turned out to be.

You're just way too much of a raging asshole to bother conversing with, or around. So go ahead and ban this now-derelict account, post a big picture of Megatron shooting my post with pew-pew laser beams or something, and cram it up your puckered little ass.

Do you really think you can cover up the fact that you're a sore loser with this nonsense? Let me explain to you the real reason that you're so pissed off, since I've flamed you far worse than "sore loser" without this kind of bitch-fest reaction. You don't like my opinions on certain pet issues, like your libertarian smokers' "rights" bullshit. But you don't have a real argument against those opinions, so all you can do is strawman, distort, nitpick, and needle. And when I point out what you're doing, you can't stand it. All I did was point out that smoking is an idiotic habit and that you're acting like a sore loser, and I suspect that the former bothers you more than the latter. You can't stand hearing me bluntly say something which offends you but which you know is absolutely true, so you can't refute it.



Go ahead, take the coward's way out. Better ask your mommy if she can tuck you into bed tonight and make you feel all better.

[Erik von Nein]

This is what I was talking about in my above post. I don't see this as being true at all. I buy groceries on a strict budget, coupons and all. I don't see, in real life experience, the junk food being cheaper. Maybe in some parts of meal preparation; for example, a bag of frozen broccoli is cheaper than buying the same amount fresh. But a bag of chips is not cheaper than cheese sticks or other healthy lunch snacks. Soda is not cheaper than generic juice brands (even ones that are not from concentrate). Even frozen juice is cheaper than soda.

It's one part preception, two parts time.

Given how many hours the average American works taking the junk food option toward having meals makes their lives just that much easier. Quite a few Americans don't have the time to not only plan out a meal ahead of time, but to buy all the parts of that meal and cook them. Combine that with the preception that junk food is also cheaper and you can see how the junk food option (I'm including frozen meals and such in that category) is the more appealing option.

[Covenant]

*snip*

While not without merit, I grew up in a single-parent household under similar circumstances and still managed to eat mostly home-cooked meals. Sure, there was fast food, but it was on an occasional basis. And you can cook pretty healthy without spending too much time on it. I used to eat out a lot because the food I was making was pretty bland, but learned ways around it.

I applaud your parents! I'm not excusing anyone, I'm just saying that people are lazy and will gravitate towards foods that accomidate their lazy lifestyle. If parents really wanted to make their kids healthy stuff they could just do things like get some Chunky Soup and add corn or rice or noodles to make it heartier, make use of leftovers from other meals (I did that tonight, delicious!) and find good ways to suppliment an existing meal with a bunch of easy to grab pile of baby carrots or sliced apples.

I'm glad that you chose to eat healthy though, and it's important that other people should too. I think that taxing the crap food isn't a bad place to start, since it will at least encourage people to buy veges and drop them on the table.

We need to fight the convenience factor of fast foods in order to make up for the damage they do, so people choose other things to grab and go, or at least subsidize other foods. Perhaps not even the foods themselves, but the markets that sell them. If we give a supermarket money for stocking a good supply of veggies it would behoove them to stock and move that merchandise. The more they buy, the more people are eating.

What we really need, though, is a change in the culture of these kinds of families to encourage them to spend the time. Maybe if they didn't need to work such long hours, maybe if there were more grocery stores in the city, maybe a lot of things. I personally don't know. All I was saying is that there's a lot of reasons it's attractive to someone to get Taco Bell instead of making home-made low fat tacos, and that simply taxing junk food like chips and non-diet sodas is only one of many things we should do. I'm for it. Not for banning it or anything insane, but a tax on them, like a tax on other harmful substances, seems perfectly reasonable and would decrease their overall use.

[Covenant]

I applaud your parents!

I should have said parent. I apologize.

[Feil]

Do fast-foods have such a powerful position in the economy that such a tax as this would result in cost-push inflation, rather than in people shifting their consumption patterns? Are there alternatives that are perceived as alternatives by the population at large, or would people keep on buying the same old junk, need more money from their jobs to keep up with the price, and so on and so on?

[Darth Wong]

I don't really believe that the cost argument for the popularity of junk food holds up, for several reasons:

1. The worst junk food is generally used to supplement real food, rather than replace it. Even the majority of trailer trash don't sit down with a nice bag of Doritos and a quart of ice cream and think this is an actual meal. It's used as snack food and desserts, to supplement the actual meal which will generally consist of meat and potatoes at the very least. It's not a staple food except among the truly stupid (even more so than the average person), so these people are not saving money by buying junk food. They are actually wasting money.
2. As noted by several others, the cost difference between healthy food and junk food can be large if you're talking about boutique organics or something, but if you get regular-grade food you can buy plenty of it without spending too much money. In many cases (such as healthy breakfast cereals as opposed to sugary junk like Count Chocula), there is no significant difference in price at all.
3. In the particular case of sodas (which are probably one of the most destructive junk foods of all), most people could drink a free alternative, which is tap water. The tap water in most regions is safe for drinking, and has been heavily treated and filtered in order to ensure that this is so. Even if people are totally paranoid about the water, they can always buy bottled water in large quantity (the big 20L jugs), where it is far cheaper per unit volume than soda. I have a water cooler in my basement for that reason.
4. Fast-foods are a particular case where one might try to make the cost argument, but their particular sales incentive is a combination of convenience and bad habits, not cost. People are too lazy to make breakfast and they have no time, so they go to McDonald's. But even this could be easily supplanted. In my case, I never have time or inclination to make real breakfast in the morning, but I replaced morning drive-through food by periodically buying boxes of granola bars, which I munch in order to keep me going until lunch. That's actually cheaper than going to a fast-food restaurant for breakfast every day.

In short, I don't believe that anyone is saving money by eating junk food. The idea of taxing it is not to remove this monetary incentive, but to increase the already-existing monetary disincentive, which is obviously not great enough to dissuade the masses.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's a problem that is being increasingly scrutinised here, the adding of E-numbers and other undesirables like corn syrup to or excess salt and colourings to foods you normally expect to be free of such crap. There was even a call this month for the same scrutiny of baby medicines, which often contain similar compounds to aid in taste, but that can also add nasty side-effects that the drug alone doesn't have.

For that reason, it is imperative the gov't subsidises the cleaner foods that aren't selling you bullshit, while making sure the higher taxation remains on foods that have a high content of the basic constituents that helps fund those subsidies. The reason I mention the traffic light and similar food labelling systems coming into use now, is that it has already shown some foods one expected to be all right are really no better than your generic, cheap garbage you expect to put you to an early grave. The companies just got so much better over the last few years at sneaking in cheaper additives to mainstream foods that, ordinarily, shouldn't need anything but the basic ingredient and a preservative like sodium benzoate.

[K. A. Pital]

In the particular case of sodas (which are probably one of the most destructive junk foods of all), most people could drink a free alternative, which is tap water.

Yeah, and if you're scared, you can buy a coal filter and use this water. Easily.

But, the argument is "sodas are tasty".

Essentially it's the same logic that is behind drugs, "I enjoy it".

Though I think natural juice is tasty and far more useful, most people would skip on it and buy soda. That's when I see a true moron, when there's a pack of 100% juice that costs 40 r. and a soda which costs 30 r., and the guy goes for the soda.

[apocolypse]

Covenant, regarding your post. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with what you stated, I was just trying to point out that it is possible to still eat fairly healthy even with other dis-incentives like you pointed out. However, my experiences do definitely appear to be the exception to the norm, as we can see with the large increase in childhood obesity. As has been pointed out, I think the economics of it are not to blame so much as the convenience factor of it. Most people that work long hours do not feel like coming home and spending another hour or so in the kitchen. I know there's times I've come home and essentially said "fuck it" and had some damn Ramen instead. And god knows Ramen is just one big ass block of sodium passing itself off as a meal.

I think if there were ways to make healthier choices more convenient, then we would see it being more of a viable option. However, I have noticed a trend lately of pre-packaged or other readily convenient healthier foods being made available, but at a higher cost than many people would probably be willing to pay. Perhaps if the demand increases, we would see more competition in the market. I couldn't say.

[Covenant]

It's getting easier to eat healthy, I'd say. Vanity is also a good counterbalance to crap eating, since nobody wants to jump into the dating pool while looking like a slob.

Also, it should be noted that juices--while having some useful vitamins--are rather high calorie. You're better off having a glass of water and an apple than apple juice any day, which I'm sure is obvious to people here, but not to people who don't read labels.

I dislike water--it makes me gag for some reason--so I flavor it with those little plastic cups full of crystal light. Basically a calorie free, suger free flavoring that goes a long way towards making an entire jug of water completely palatable. There's ones that make it taste nearly exactly like orange juice. They're a little pricier than something like Koolaid, but there's no reason why you can't get the suger free stuff anyway.

Part of the problem is that the communities most likely to get massively obese are also the poor and uneducated parts of ethnic communities with some bizzare ideas about health. I've heard from several of the black caregivers taking care of my Grandpa that they don't believe that Diet Sodas are any better for you, and swear to normal stuff as healthier or safer or something. Some other community, Polish or Ukranian or something, also swears that there's a multitude of fiber in cucumbers... which is just flat out wrong.

Now, at his age, Grandpa certainly doesn't need a diet coke as compared to a real one if he chooses, but this kind of thinking by people who position themselves as health professionals with some history in food science (which they aren't) is dangerous to a community, as bad information about food science is one of the reasons people simply don't bother. They know that eating candy all day is bad, but never stop to look at the comparitive caloric intake between a small personal snickers bar and a mountain dew.

[Darth Fanboy]

I don't have a problem with this idea, and I am rather shameless about my eating habits. Although admittedly i'm not big into sweets and desserts and I drink about a tenth of the soda that I used to.

As far as labeling what is "junk food", would it be too much of a stretch to have the FDA come up with some sort of minimum requirements for nutrition per serving, that if a food product does not meet it can be labeled "non-nutritive food" or some other technobabble label for "junk food", and then the tax be applied per serving?

I'd also be interested in seeing how the lobbyists react.

[brianeyci]

Having read through the threads and arguments, I'd support a junk food tax too.

The only problem is defining what's junk food. Legislation tends to be step functions, this is allowed, that isn't allowed. Legislation also tends to be behind the times. I wouldn't want useless legislation that gives junk food makers a five year window to make cosmetic or otherwise worthless changes to their food, allowing them to bypass the tax.

I also wouldn't want legislation to spell out specific brands or names of products. The only way it would work would be scientifically determining what is junk food and what is not. This would probably be, over x amount of sugar, x being the total amount per day you can eat. But then people would just eat more of the same food. Ideally you'd want a differentiable function which rapidly increases as x goes to infinity to the point that if a company wants to make a pure sugar killer bar, it'd be a luxury. But fat chance getting mathematics and science in legislation.

I would support all of the following before tax which I view as a last resort: healthy eating programs in schools, banning soda machines in schools, healthy eating commercials, health classes. But then again in America obesity might be getting to epidemic proportions so maybe now is the time for drastic measures, I'm not informed enough to say.

[Davis 51]

Here's the thing with junk food: I enjoy soda. I enjoy Doritoes. I enjoy Oreos. I enjoy lots of food. I try and limit my intake of these foods, and balance it out by going to the gym regularly. I do not consider myself overweight by a long shot. And I consider the junk food to be far less adverse to that of smoking.

Yet, given the reasons put forth in this thread, I wouldn't mind a tax on junk food, so long as it were foolproof. Such a legislation could prove to be problamatic. Also, I would prefer that the revenues from these taxes go into healthy eating programs in schools more than anything else, primarily because the food offered in the cafeteria was crap.

Our parents would bitch and moan about how vending machines and sodas shouldn't be allowed in cafeterias, snacks should be banned, etc. Except they completely ignored the crap that everyone who got food from the lunch lines was forced to eat. That shit had oils dripping out of every food you could possibly imagine. I've had McDonalds that was healthier than this shit. The only thing remotely healthy was a "lowfat burger," but no one ate it because it tasted like shit.

People were so blinded by this "junk food" crusade, that they forgot the bigger picture: the regular food, which some students didn't even have a choice about, was the unhealthiest shit you have ever tasted.

To top it off, looking around, for every twenty-five people who were healthy, you would have one person who was obese. That's around 4 percent. The problem was not even that serious.

So ban soda machines and snack machines if you like. But please don't loose sight of the biggest problem, and that would be the cafeteria food. Some schools in my area have already taken steps, offering healthy homestyle meals instead of that prepackaged pizza & fries crap. It also seems to be working, too. I would be very pleased with the tax if it made more schools like that.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, and if you're scared, you can buy a coal filter and use this water. Easily.

But, the argument is "sodas are tasty".

Essentially it's the same logic that is behind drugs, "I enjoy it".

Though I think natural juice is tasty and far more useful, most people would skip on it and buy soda. That's when I see a true moron, when there's a pack of 100% juice that costs 40 r. and a soda which costs 30 r., and the guy goes for the soda.

If I could, I'd drink Innocence smoothies all day long. The problem is, at £2.70 a litre, they're not cheap, but they are better than fruit juices and far and away better than just water or water and several grams of sugar (soft drinks).

This is one of the products you need subsidising with your revenues from taxing foods that have stealthy shit put in, or companies that only make fast food junk, as opposed to helping by adding healthier alternatives.

[Mange]

Absolutely no punitive taxes IMHO, people should decide for themselves what they want to eat healthy or not, it's not up to the government to promote through taxes what people should eat, but there should be information campaigns etc. I seldom eat junk food, but when I do, I do it because I'm in a hurry. I can't imagine eating such food on a regular basis.

[Covenant]

Absolutely no punitive taxes IMHO, people should decide for themselves what they want to eat healthy or not, it's not up to the government to promote through taxes what people should eat, but there should be information campaigns etc. I seldom eat junk food, but when I do, I do it because I'm in a hurry. I can't imagine eating such food on a regular basis.

They can indeed decide for themselves, and this minor tax will pay for those information campaigns. If people want to stop being taxed they can just buy a different product or limit their intake. Tax normal sodas, but not diet ones. Tax potato chips, but not the baked ones. Etc.

[General Soontir Fel]

In the particular case of sodas (which are probably one of the most destructive junk foods of all), most people could drink a free alternative, which is tap water.

Yeah, and if you're scared, you can buy a coal filter and use this water. Easily.

But, the argument is "sodas are tasty".

Essentially it's the same logic that is behind drugs, "I enjoy it".

Though I think natural juice is tasty and far more useful, most people would skip on it and buy soda. That's when I see a true moron, when there's a pack of 100% juice that costs 40 r. and a soda which costs 30 r., and the guy goes for the soda.

If you're really paranoid, just boil the tap water before drinking it.

Sodas: I have a particular hatred of sodas because, due to all the sugar in them, they tend to make you more thirsty rather than less. I can't belive some people still haven't figured it out--they drink a soda with their lunch, then start feeling thirsty--so they drink another soda...

I frequently go on bike rides that last a good part of the day, and usually stop somewhere like Subway or Quizno's. But I only buy the food, and to drink, I carry my own water bottles. In the summer, I cool them in the freezer the night before--colder than any ice you'd get in a fast food place.

[Darth Wong]

Absolutely no punitive taxes IMHO, people should decide for themselves what they want to eat healthy or not

Why? Historical precedent has certainly not demonstrated that they have sufficient judgment in this regard.

it's not up to the government to promote through taxes what people should eat

Why not?

but there should be information campaigns etc.

That's been done, without success. People eat more bullshit food than ever. And the advertising budget of the junk food companies is orders of magnitude greater than that of the healthy eating campaigns.

I seldom eat junk food, but when I do, I do it because I'm in a hurry. I can't imagine eating such food on a regular basis.

So? What do your personal habits prove?

Did it even occur to you that someone might question your method of phrasing your conclusions in the form of a priori statements, without a shred of reasoning behind them? You seem to be saying that all these propositions of yours are self-evident.

Let's put this in the most stark possible way: obesity is killing ten times more people every year than murder. Therefore, it is completely absurd to say that this is not a problem the government should concern itself with.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you're really paranoid, just boil the tap water before drinking it.

Sodas: I have a particular hatred of sodas because, due to all the sugar in them, they tend to make you more thirsty rather than less. I can't belive some people still haven't figured it out--they drink a soda with their lunch, then start feeling thirsty--so they drink another soda...

I frequently go on bike rides that last a good part of the day, and usually stop somewhere like Subway or Quizno's. But I only buy the food, and to drink, I carry my own water bottles. In the summer, I cool them in the freezer the night before--colder than any ice you'd get in a fast food place.

That is why good mineral water or an isotonic sports drink is what you need during manual labour. Drinking something like a soft drink or milkshake or something even more ludicrous will only screw with your metabolism and make the work harder, as you say.

Given smoking is still adopted by a great many people in this world, to expect them to also cotton on to the fact that sugary sodas only leech water out of your system is putting too much faith in the species.

[Nova Andromeda]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of the reason why obesity is highest among poor people is that fatty foods devoid of nutritional value are cheapest.

-You're wrong, I just finished a $7 bag of rice from costco a couple months ago. It took me 3 years... it was 50 lbs after all. You can supply yourself with multivitamins for next to nothing as well. There are all kinds of foods one can buy that are cheap and don't fall into the expensive foods catagory. Even if you like meat you can get it for $1.50 / lb without a lot of fat content.

[Nova Andromeda]

To be honest, I think most of you could probably predict what I would say about a punitive junk food surtax, and how I would go about trying to ethically justify it. What do you think?

-I like the tax idea, but I'd like some sort of way to prevent the gov. from speeding the money on new wars. If you can do that you might as well also tax all the other poor life style choices such as skiing, mountain climbing, etc. In fact, one could also provide tax incentives for people who regularly exercise, help prevent the spread of disease (e.g., by using condoms), get regular health checkups, etc.

[Darth Wong]

To be honest, I think most of you could probably predict what I would say about a punitive junk food surtax, and how I would go about trying to ethically justify it. What do you think?

-I like the tax idea, but I'd like some sort of way to prevent the gov. from speeding the money on new wars.

Why bother? It's nothing more than sophistry to act as though particular bits of tax money are dedicated to one program or another. The government spends from its funds in order to pay for its programs. Any segregation of one funding pool from another is largely imaginary, as different parts of the government simply borrow from each other in order to make up shortfalls.

If you can do that you might as well also tax all the other poor life style choices such as skiing, mountain climbing, etc.

In those cases, the small number of deaths means that the bureaucracy won't be worth it. But obesity is a HUGE problem.

In fact, one could also provide tax incentives for people who regularly exercise, help prevent the spread of disease (e.g., by using condoms), get regular health checkups, etc.

Again, one has to question whether the bureaucracy is worth it, not to mention the inevitable fraud and policing. A problem should be really significant before you start trying to solve it with government force. Obesity kills hundreds of thousands per year and certainly meets this criterion.

[Nova Andromeda]

To be honest, I think most of you could probably predict what I would say about a punitive junk food surtax, and how I would go about trying to ethically justify it. What do you think?

-I like the tax idea, but I'd like some sort of way to prevent the gov. from speeding the money on new wars.

Why bother? It's nothing more than sophistry to act as though particular bits of tax money are dedicated to one program or another. The government spends from its funds in order to pay for its programs. Any segregation of one funding pool from another is largely imaginary, as different parts of the government simply borrow from each other in order to make up shortfalls.

-I'm just being an optimist here and griping about large problems I guess, but on my list of priorities a tax on junk food is not even close to preventing things like the current Iraq war. For the cost of funding that war alone (nevermind preventing all the damage done) we could have solved numorous world problems. In any event, I'm off topic now so....

If you can do that you might as well also tax all the other poor life style choices such as skiing, mountain climbing, etc.

In those cases, the small number of deaths means that the bureaucracy won't be worth it. But obesity is a HUGE problem.

-Are you so sure that there would be that big of an increase in bureaucracy/cost? The US tax code is already massively complex and these taxes could be applied to the corporations that facilitate such activities (who already have professionals do their taxes). In addition, I think you may underestimate the number of serious injuries that result from these activities. Most of the people that I know who do engage in these activities regularly have had more than one injury that was as serious or worse than a broken bone.

In fact, one could also provide tax incentives for people who regularly exercise, help prevent the spread of disease (e.g., by using condoms), get regular health checkups, etc.

Again, one has to question whether the bureaucracy is worth it, not to mention the inevitable fraud and policing. A problem should be really significant before you start trying to solve it with government force. Obesity kills hundreds of thousands per year and certainly meets this criterion.

-See above on the bureaucracy cost issue. On the benefit side, Canada and the US are quite different. Many people in the US don't have health insurance and therefore don't have preventative medical care. This alone results in massive costs since nothing is done until a problem becomes really serious. On the exercise front, this is also a major health issue that contributes to obesity. Government subsidies or tax incentives that encourage 'active' activities doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. The spread of disease is already such a serious problem that the gov. spends serious money on it. I don't see how doing something like seriously subsidizing condoms, providing tax right offs for STD testing, etc. hurts more than it helps. In fact, now that I think about it the gov. already does some or all of this, but I'd have to look into it more to find out what they do exactly....