Obesity tops tobacco as biggest health threat

[General Zod]

That said, I don't know why a tax on junk food is more desirable than simply taxing obese people. With cigarettes it worked because there was a 1:1 relationship between tobacco and tobacco-related health problems. Here, I'm not convinced of that. Ordering salads is generally a good way to reduce calories, for example, but not when your salad consists of 85% Caesar dressing, by volume. Do you tax the dressing? That would be fine if people were preparing their foods on their own, but it's not really workable in restaurants. And what of foods, like cheese or avocados, that virtually everyone acknowledges are healthy when consumed in rational quantities but not when they constitute a substantial fraction of one's diet? I think the problem is that the morbidly obese aren't bearing the cost of their obesity. Health insurance in the US, largely for tax reasons, is very commonly provided by the employer to all of their employees, but this creates strange incentives in the area of obesity because employers don't tend to avoid hiring obese people, even though they have to pay higher health insurance costs for them. Thus, I think they could garnish peoples' pay for the difference in rates if they're obese. Further, when I go to an airport, they measure my bags to make sure they weigh less than whatever their limit is, and would charge me if they were too heavy. They never weigh ME along with my bags, to see how much I weigh, even though my weight presumably affects their costs almost as much as my bags do.

Taxing someone for being obese seems like it would cost more to enforce than just taxing the food that they eat. I could also see a shitload of lawsuits getting an "obesity tax" dismissed.

[Vendetta]

Also as noted upthread, taxation on junk foods creates a visible disincentive to get fat in the first place, because the foods which would get you fat are more expensive so you can afford less of them, whereas an ass tax for being fat is "invisible" to those who aren't paying it, and therefore doesn't have the same value.

[Darth Wong]

That said, I don't know why a tax on junk food is more desirable than simply taxing obese people. With cigarettes it worked because there was a 1:1 relationship between tobacco and tobacco-related health problems. Here, I'm not convinced of that.

Taxing people for being obese is directly discriminatory. Taxing junk food isn't. It is indirectly discriminatory, ie- people who overindulge on those foods get taxed, but it's not as bad. We want to try to do something about obesity, but we don't hate obese people; we just want to create an economic incentive system that will make it more likely for them to get healthy.

Ordering salads is generally a good way to reduce calories, for example, but not when your salad consists of 85% Caesar dressing, by volume. Do you tax the dressing?

You tax the whole salad, because the net product has high fat. You would also tax high-fat dressings in general, of course.

That would be fine if people were preparing their foods on their own, but it's not really workable in restaurants. And what of foods, like cheese or avocados, that virtually everyone acknowledges are healthy when consumed in rational quantities but not when they constitute a substantial fraction of one's diet?

If they're consumed in rational quantities, then the tax won't hurt you too much.

[Isolder74]

What is it with these types of anecdotes and Diet Coke? Whether it's something with absurd numbers like this or the whole "double big mac with super sized fries and a diet coke" thing.

More then likely they think that the diet coke make it better somehow calms there conscience or something like that.

it still boggles my mind that someone can sit down and eat food at that kind of excessive amounts then down a diet drink thinking that that makes everything better.

I'll just say that I couldn't get through half of big mac the guy orders before getting sick.

[Darksider]

I'll just say that I couldn't get through half of big mac the guy orders before getting sick.

I could see ordering six big mac meals for six people, but twenty hamburgers and forty cheeseburgers? that's ten burgers a pop, plus a big mac and fries. I have never, and I mean never been able to eat ten mcdonalds burgers. The absolute fucking maximum i've ever ordered is six double cheeseburgers, and that was when I hadn't eaten anything else all day. Even still, I ended up throwing two in the fridge for the next day. I doubt I could get through ten of those tiny little white castle burgers without getting sick.

How the fuck does someone get to the point where they need to eat that much food? I'll readily admit that I am far from fit, and that I need to loose about twenty pounds, but even I couldn't possibly eat that much in a day, let alone a single meal.

[Isolder74]

I'll just say that I couldn't get through half of big mac the guy orders before getting sick.

I could see ordering six big mac meals for six people, but twenty hamburgers and forty cheeseburgers? that's ten burgers a pop, plus a big mac and fries. I have never, and I mean never been able to eat ten mcdonalds burgers. The absolute fucking maximum i've ever ordered is six double cheeseburgers, and that was when I hadn't eaten anything else all day. Even still, I ended up throwing two in the fridge for the next day. I doubt I could get through ten of those tiny little white castle burgers without getting sick.

How the fuck does someone get to the point where they need to eat that much food? I'll readily admit that I am far from fit, and that I need to loose about twenty pounds, but even I couldn't possibly eat that much in a day, let alone a single meal.

It's worse than that I'm afraid.

The man ordered every day the following:
6 Big Macs
30 Hamburgers
40 Cheeseburgers
6 orders of large fries
6 Diet Cokes

If split 6 ways that comes out to:
1 Diet Coke
1 Big Mac
6 Cheeseburger with 4 left over(4 eating 7)
5 Hamgurgers
1 Order of Fries(biggest possible size we had)

I'd be full at the Bog Mac and fries and might eat one of the cheeseburgers. i have no idea how they build up the space to eat this much. I used to room with a large guy and whenever I'd order a pizza because I was tired or didn't have time that day to cook something myself i knew that soon after mine arrived that the Dominoes guy would show up with two pizza then the Pizza Hut guy with 2 more. He'd then take them in the room and before I'd be heading to bed he'd have eaten them all. The first time he did this i thought that he was being nice and was treating the apartment to pizza but nope it was all for him. I was dumbfounded to say the least.

[ThomasP]

I'd like to reiterate again that it's all but impossible to separate the physiological effects of weight regulation from the psychological effects.

It's one thing to say "stop eating so much, fatass". From a rational standpoint that is the answer, yes. The problem is there's nothing rational about the decision-making process with regards to over-eating.

The cocaine analogy is very apt here since the same dopamine reward pathways that govern cocaine addiction (via pleasure-seeking) are also largely responsible for regulation of body mass and food intake (search the strings "leptin" and "obesity" on Pubmed for all the information you could ever want on that subject).

Yes, will power and directed conscious effort can overcome those mechanisms, if the person really wants it. But that's the problem; you have to really want it and you have to understand that it will take a massive conscious effort. The psychological-by-physiological responses to reduction of food intake and/or fat mass are very powerful and they aren't easy to overcome.

Which is why so many people fail. It's easier just to give in and do what your body tells you. The sex analogy is a bad one from the outset, because the consequences of unrestrained sexual behavior vs. unrestrained eating are nowhere near identical. There's much more legal and social impetus to keep it in your pants than there is pressure to not be fat.

[Darth Wong]

I'd like to reiterate again that it's all but impossible to separate the physiological effects of weight regulation from the psychological effects.

Which is why it's important to create a social mechanism to apply negative pressure against overeating, over and above the existing mechanisms, ie- taxes.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Because a 375mm coke has 40grams of sugar whereas a coke zero has none. TURNS OUT ordering diet coke will make your meal half as unhealthy.

[ThomasP]

I'd like to reiterate again that it's all but impossible to separate the physiological effects of weight regulation from the psychological effects.

Which is why it's important to create a social mechanism to apply negative pressure against overeating, over and above the existing mechanisms, ie- taxes.

I'm on the fence as to how much that would actually help, honestly. Intuitively it seems like it would, simply by removing the ease of access to what we consider the main offenders, and in all actuality it likely would help out by steering most people away from tasty high-calorie treats.

Where I start to question the strategy is that the obesity issue isn't purely a function of increased junk food availability. It certainly has contributed, but then again, so has the general trend towards being sedentary. Kids have been sitting at home and playing video games since the 80s, PE classes have been cut back, walking and cycling have been replaced with more cars, and so on down the list. The average Westerner, in addition to eating more, is also getting less activity.

I noted before that people can and will over-eat on otherwise "good" foods. At least as it relates to obesity, food type or quality only matters in as much as it provides calories. Healthy options are more filling and less calorie dense, while junk foods tend to be calorie-rich and promote their own consumption by being less satiating. It's a whole lot easier to over-feed on non-diet colas and potato chips and triple cheeseburgers than it is on meats and veggies and fruits.

What I wonder is if taxes were implemented on "junk foods" (which is going to be fairly nebulous and hard to define, as another issue), what would actually happen as far as behavioral changes. Healthier choices (which you could classify as more nutrient-dense, more satiating, and less calorie-rich) can be had for reasonable prices, but nothing approaches that perfect storm of convenience and pricing quite like fast food.

It might be that people simply find some other way to over-eat - and for the average sedentary type, "over-eat" isn't a whole lot of food. I'd want to see some kind of trial of this nature to see what would actually happen; it might work, but we might be surprised, too. Let me go have a look at the research because this actually sounds familiar to me.

[ThomasP]

It appears that there is quite a bit of literature on using regulatory intervention:

Link

There's some interesting material there for anyone interested.

[Master of Ossus]

Taxing people for being obese is directly discriminatory. Taxing junk food isn't. It is indirectly discriminatory, ie- people who overindulge on those foods get taxed, but it's not as bad. We want to try to do something about obesity, but we don't hate obese people; we just want to create an economic incentive system that will make it more likely for them to get healthy.

But obesity directly is the source of the problems; not the food. As for being "directly discriminatory," who gives a fuck? The problem is that obese people are obese, which causes them all manner of health problems which causes society all manner of problems. My system directly targets the problem whereas yours does so only indirectly. It's reasonable to discriminate against obesity when you're trying to deal with obesity as a social problem. Moreover, taxing people for being obese isn't stating that we hate them--it states that we're taxing their obesity. Moreover, your mechanism leaves people who are in excellent shape because they are physically active but eat bad food (e.g., a construction worker) in an awkward position in which they would almost certainly change their behavior, even though they create none of the problems that you're trying to target. Your system, in short, only envisions sedentary office workers even though you seek to apply it across all of society.

You tax the whole salad, because the net product has high fat. You would also tax high-fat dressings in general, of course.

That just seems unworkable--how can you evaluate what goes into a salad from the salad bar, for instance, or would you insist on weighing out different components of peoples' salads? Note that if you tax the restaurant serving it and leave it up to them, then the tax would likely be spread to all people who order salads because a restaurant is unable, ex ante, to determine the level of dressing on each person's salad, which just increases the cost of salad bars in general.

If they're consumed in rational quantities, then the tax won't hurt you too much.

So what foods, if any, are not taxed under your system? Virtually any food is bad for you if consumed in supra-rational quantities. Do you simply impose a calorie tax?

[Broomstick]

To be fair, there are economic barriers. The zipcode effect in the US is shown in that neighbourhood stores don't store fresh produce and veggies, so, poorer families unable to invest the time or the gasoline to drive to the supermarket purchase poorer quality food.

Seriously? I've never seen a corner store without veggies here. Then again, our entire country can be comfortably fit inside Texas

Seriously. The city of Detroit, for example, for decades had not a single major grocery store in the entire city, and for quite awhile only one 7/11, which is a convenience store that would have an extremely limited selection of foods. For and entire city. If you wanted to buy groceries you had to go outside the city proper, and the mass transit, to be honest, sucked donkey balls (still does).

[Broomstick]

I've been trying to come up with an intelligent answer to this thread.

I think there needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Perhaps a tax on "junk food" - any package that is largely fat or sugar, or any package over a certain number of calories (which brings in portion control). Plain rice cakes or popcorn aren't terribly nutritious, but aren't full of calories, either. Flavored rice cakes and/or popcorn might have many more calories per serving and maybe should be taxed to encourage people to go for the lower calorie option. Likewise, full sugar soft drinks perhaps should be taxed, while diet drinks not. Even reducing intake 100 calories a day will be of benefit, and for some people much greater reductions are possible with minimal pain if properly approached.

For restaurants, it might make more sense to tax large portions - anything over a certain number of calories, or with more than 6 ounces of meat, or some other defining characteristic to be taxed, to encourage smaller portions. Buffets, at which it is enormously easy to overeat, might need a little attention, too.

But attention must also be paid to availability of good food. "Food deserts" do exist. I mentioned Detroit - for those of you not familiar with the city there is a place called Eastern Market which is essentially the only place left inside the city where you can buy a large variety fresh fruits, vegetables, and other products. Starting in 2007, a program allowed food stamp recipients to use their benefit card at the Eastern Market so poor people had the same access to produce as anyone else coming there. This was followed up by Mo' Bucks to further encourage food stamp recipients to purchase locally grown fruits and vegetables. Detroit is also allowing residents to grow gardens on vacant land, of which there is an unfortunate abundance in that city. This helps eliminate barriers to obtaining good, healthy foods.

There also need to be safe places to exercise. My area has converted abandoned railroad right-of-ways to bike trails and walking/running trails which are free of charge. Local authorities keep playgrounds and community centers safe. (On Tuesday I fly RC airplanes at a local community center, in the gym. While we're doing that, there are people doing walking laps around the outer perimeter, as an example. There are posted rules of behavior, and staff to make sure any disputes on the use of space are settled peaceably and quickly.) There also need to be venues open to families and to adults - exercise shouldn't end at adulthood. Perhaps there should be tax breaks for malls that have exercise programs early in the day (some already have this) or otherwise sponsor even mild exercise opportunities. Or maybe stores can offer coupons for discounts on buying clothes 2 sizes smaller than you used to, to reward positive progress. I'm sure there are a number of ways to approach this.

And yes, there should be some social pressure to encourage people to lose weight and get in shape. This needs to be humane - for someone morbidly obese simply walking a block or two can be overwhelming. Nonetheless, they should be encouraged to do that, because it's only by doing such things that they will become more capable of exercise. Obese people are people with a serious problem. Overcoming it will be hard. They should be encouraged to improve, but brow-beating them, humiliating them, or otherwise telling them to shape the fuck up will only work with a minority of them - in most cases it will probably only make things worse.

This is not intended to be a master plan, but rather some half-formed ideas to attack the problem from multiple angles.

[PainRack]

But obesity directly is the source of the problems; not the food. As for being "directly discriminatory," who gives a fuck? The problem is that obese people are obese, which causes them all manner of health problems which causes society all manner of problems. My system directly targets the problem whereas yours does so only indirectly. It's reasonable to discriminate against obesity when you're trying to deal with obesity as a social problem. Moreover, taxing people for being obese isn't stating that we hate them--it states that we're taxing their obesity. Moreover, your mechanism leaves people who are in excellent shape because they are physically active but eat bad food (e.g., a construction worker) in an awkward position in which they would almost certainly change their behavior, even though they create none of the problems that you're trying to target. Your system, in short, only envisions sedentary office workers even though you seek to apply it across all of society.

Except Wong methods is aimed at getting them to CHANGE their ways. Yours is just a penalty imposed for being fat.
The manipulation of cigeratte prices, along with smoking cessation programmes, advertising and health education has been responsible for driving down smoking rates in many countries.

So what foods, if any, are not taxed under your system? Virtually any food is bad for you if consumed in supra-rational quantities. Do you simply impose a calorie tax?

Simple. Tax the ingredients directly.

Increase the basic tax on simple sugar and fat. Sure, we increase the cost of other foods too, but this would actually make nonprocessed food even MORE attractive.

It would work on EVERYTHING. You want to apply more lard on your barbecued meats, the costs of doing so is now higher because of the tax on lard. Manufacturers can no longer simply add "value" by increasing sugar content. Inflationary pressures would be placed on processed foods and restaurants.

[PainRack]

It appears that there is quite a bit of literature on using regulatory intervention:

Link

There's some interesting material there for anyone interested.

One should note that influencing consumer behaviour is something that's almost guranteed to fail. Increasing cigeratte prices alone have virtually no effect on hardcore smokers who simply picked up the penalty tab. They did have a detterrent effect on people picking up smoking however.

In this case, influencing restaurants and food manufacturers to actually decrease food portion sizes would probably bring about more bang for the buck.

[Stark]

Uh, are you sure? I was under the impression that tobacco tax did indeed influence people to quite smoking; anecdotally many people I know have cited this as a reason to stop. Turns out a lot of people want to quit but need to be pushed into it because nicotine is ludicrously addictive.

[ThomasP]

A few of the reviews I browsed through indicated that smaller (and of course more politically-viable) tax increases would be all but worthless as far as having any real impact on obesity, and while larger increases would have a larger effect, they'd be much harder to pass due to all the screeching they'd generate.

[Bakustra]

To be fair, there are economic barriers. The zipcode effect in the US is shown in that neighbourhood stores don't store fresh produce and veggies, so, poorer families unable to invest the time or the gasoline to drive to the supermarket purchase poorer quality food.

Seriously? I've never seen a corner store without veggies here. Then again, our entire country can be comfortably fit inside Texas

Seriously. The city of Detroit, for example, for decades had not a single major grocery store in the entire city, and for quite awhile only one 7/11, which is a convenience store that would have an extremely limited selection of foods. For and entire city. If you wanted to buy groceries you had to go outside the city proper, and the mass transit, to be honest, sucked donkey balls (still does).

Detroit is an extreme example, though. Most US cities don't have things quite so poor as no groceries for a million people. I doubt that Detroit lacked any grocery stores altogether, just major chain grocers. As for mass transit... Detroit has mass transit? Beyond the People Mover? Good joke.

Admittedly, they do have buses and plans to bring commuter and light rail into the city. Of course, I'll believe that when I see it, given that I've seen precisely one Detroit city bus in my life in Southeast Michigan.

The availability of vegetables and fruits within the US depends on where you live. Rural areas tend to, particularly in the Upper Midwest and Northeast, have a great deal of fresh fruit and vegetables available seasonally. Larger grocery stores tend to stock fresh fruits and vegetables, as well, but the emphasis is on commercial, processed food. Many groceries lack any sort of fresh bread or baked goods (beyond doughnuts), for example. Fruits and vegetables are available, but on the other hand, most suburbs, and exurbs even more, require people to drive a ways for them.

Convenience stores tend to lack any food beyond potato chips, milk, soda, and bread, along with other "snack foods" and prepared meals like ramen and breakfast cereal. The better ones might have a meat counter, but vegetables? Fruit? God forbid, fresh fruit or vegetables? We've got none of those communist innovations in foodstuffery available here, unless it's canned and drenched in syrup. Back when I worked in a pharmacy that had collided with a convenience store, we devoted more space to candy than to all the other foods put together, and potato chips alone had twice as much space as bread. You don't want to know how much space we devoted to pop. Altogether, we had more space devoted to junk food than we did to over-the-counter drugs, by my estimate.

While healthy foods are somewhat available, they tend to have more preparation involved and are generally thought of as less delicious than junk. People thus buy TV dinners or other prepackaged meals, or go to McDonald's, or order pizza regularly. Actually making your own food is cheaper, but few people seem to be willing to put in the time investment. Kids then grow up eating junk food and become accustomed to it, along with white (bleached) bread, meaning that they have no experience with healthy food, are likely to feel that it tastes odd, and have a good chance of their body reacting poorly. (I have a similar reaction to white (bleached) bread after eating whole-wheat bread for most of my life.) The problem with junk, of course, is that it tends to be smaller, yet higher in caloric content. Your stomach doesn't feel as full when you eat 400 calories of beef as opposed to 400 calories of lettuce, meaning that people tend to overeat when they have low-fruit and low-vegetable diets, since their body tells them it isn't full yet. A tax would help, but it needs to be accompanied, of course, by educational programs. This would be hard, since the totality of the junk-food business is probably larger than the tobacco companies, but doable with enough will. Of course, political will seems to be in short supply these days.

Taxing people for being obese is directly discriminatory. Taxing junk food isn't. It is indirectly discriminatory, ie- people who overindulge on those foods get taxed, but it's not as bad. We want to try to do something about obesity, but we don't hate obese people; we just want to create an economic incentive system that will make it more likely for them to get healthy.

But obesity directly is the source of the problems; not the food. As for being "directly discriminatory," who gives a fuck? The problem is that obese people are obese, which causes them all manner of health problems which causes society all manner of problems. My system directly targets the problem whereas yours does so only indirectly. It's reasonable to discriminate against obesity when you're trying to deal with obesity as a social problem. Moreover, taxing people for being obese isn't stating that we hate them--it states that we're taxing their obesity. Moreover, your mechanism leaves people who are in excellent shape because they are physically active but eat bad food (e.g., a construction worker) in an awkward position in which they would almost certainly change their behavior, even though they create none of the problems that you're trying to target. Your system, in short, only envisions sedentary office workers even though you seek to apply it across all of society.

What proportion of the public is physically active as a part of their jobs? How would they, or society in general, be harmed, if the physically active eat better? Further, you are assuming that reducing obesity is the only benefit that should be considered in this, ignoring any of the nutritional benefits from people getting less salt, sugar, oil, and fat in their diets, which include the physically active, like construction workers.

With regards to portion sizes, buffets might be a little impractical to solve with direct action, save taxing them into oblivion. Potentially, restricting the number of times a customer could pass through the line (say, two times) might work, save for the problem of competitors offering unlimited times through (after all, they can afford it now). Cultural change might be better. Taxing large portions is a good idea, especially since better and more expensive restaurants tend to serve smaller portions already. Convincing cheaper restaurants to do so would help. Another idea might be to encourage the addition of roughage or vegetables to portions but not taxing those as heavily/at all.

[Broomstick]

Seriously? I've never seen a corner store without veggies here. Then again, our entire country can be comfortably fit inside Texas

Seriously. The city of Detroit, for example, for decades had not a single major grocery store in the entire city, and for quite awhile only one 7/11, which is a convenience store that would have an extremely limited selection of foods. For and entire city. If you wanted to buy groceries you had to go outside the city proper, and the mass transit, to be honest, sucked donkey balls (still does).

Detroit is an extreme example, though. Most US cities don't have things quite so poor as no groceries for a million people. I doubt that Detroit lacked any grocery stores altogether, just major chain grocers.

No, hon - no grocery stores. Period. Just the ONE 7/11. That was, admittedly, the nadir but I wasn't kidding or exaggerating. There was a number of YEARS the city of Detroit had no grocery stores.

Yes, it's the extreme. So what? There are parts of the west side of Chicago of equal geographic area with a very similar problem even today. Chicago, however, has a mass transit system that enables even the poor without cars to get to a real, fully stocked store to buy healthy food.

As for mass transit... Detroit has mass transit? Beyond the People Mover? Good joke.

Yeah, it's tempting to say "none" but in fact there is a VERY limited bus system. It's practically useless, but for accuracy's sake I could not say "none".

Admittedly, they do have buses and plans to bring commuter and light rail into the city. Of course, I'll believe that when I see it, given that I've seen precisely one Detroit city bus in my life in Southeast Michigan.

There used to be a commuter rail between Pontiac and downtown Detroit - my mother used it for several years when she worked in Detroit proper. It was discontinued, I think, some time after I moved to Chicago. Fact is, there is so little commercial activity in Detroit that it's not practical to fund commuter transit. It would make more sense, economically, to boost suburban transit and have feeders from inside Detroit out to the suburbs where the jobs are.

[Bakustra]

Detroit is an extreme example, though. Most US cities don't have things quite so poor as no groceries for a million people. I doubt that Detroit lacked any grocery stores altogether, just major chain grocers.

No, hon - no grocery stores. Period. Just the ONE 7/11. That was, admittedly, the nadir but I wasn't kidding or exaggerating. There was a number of YEARS the city of Detroit had no grocery stores.

Yes, it's the extreme. So what? There are parts of the west side of Chicago of equal geographic area with a very similar problem even today. Chicago, however, has a mass transit system that enables even the poor without cars to get to a real, fully stocked store to buy healthy food.

They lacked anything beyond a 7/11 for more than a million people (since this was, I presume, years back)? What the fuck. How did everybody not die of scurvy? When was this, out of curiosity? I can easily believe you, since the city has become pretty patchwork over the years as people move out of neighborhoods, causing all the local businesses to fail, causing more job loss, causing people to move out in a loop of positive feedback.

As for Chicago, that's a real city, not a husk of one left half-dead. Are these areas of Chicago suburban, or urban proper? Further, what do you mean by "of equal geographic area?" The same size as Detroit? The same size as the downtown of Detroit? Depending on how impoverished the neighborhoods were/are, I can definitely see that in a more urban area, particularly if it's too crime-ridden/impoverished for smaller groceries to open.

"Extreme example" mainly because most cities within the US are not quite so dysfunctional nor impoverished as Detroit is.

As for mass transit... Detroit has mass transit? Beyond the People Mover? Good joke.

Yeah, it's tempting to say "none" but in fact there is a VERY limited bus system. It's practically useless, but for accuracy's sake I could not say "none".

Hey, I'm a native of the area myself. Mass transit in the Metro Detroit area is a cruel prank played on an unsuspecting public. Someday, they'll get the joke. Someday.

Admittedly, they do have buses and plans to bring commuter and light rail into the city. Of course, I'll believe that when I see it, given that I've seen precisely one Detroit city bus in my life in Southeast Michigan.

There used to be a commuter rail between Pontiac and downtown Detroit - my mother used it for several years when she worked in Detroit proper. It was discontinued, I think, some time after I moved to Chicago. Fact is, there is so little commercial activity in Detroit that it's not practical to fund commuter transit. It would make more sense, economically, to boost suburban transit and have feeders from inside Detroit out to the suburbs where the jobs are.

This would be from Ann Arbor to Detroit. To be honest, I think that bringing rail to the suburbs would be ideal, but the suburbs would whine and cry and clutch their precious, pot-hole-ridden freeways. After that, we'd probably get another round of white flight as soon as Detroiters start seeking jobs and moving out of the city. (Only in the Downriver area, mind. The northwest is already safely redlined against any integrative efforts.) Of course, there are barely enough jobs in the suburbs as is currently. Frankly, what would be ideal is if the suburbs learned what a main street and a downtown are. Then they would see what the benefits of rail are. As-is, they will continue on their trail of automobiles as long as they can. Of course, I may be a little bitter, growing up in the hell of racism, classism, and gasoline fumes that is Southeast Michigan. But hey- we're only about fifty miles from Hell proper.

[Master of Ossus]

But obesity directly is the source of the problems; not the food. As for being "directly discriminatory," who gives a fuck? The problem is that obese people are obese, which causes them all manner of health problems which causes society all manner of problems. My system directly targets the problem whereas yours does so only indirectly. It's reasonable to discriminate against obesity when you're trying to deal with obesity as a social problem. Moreover, taxing people for being obese isn't stating that we hate them--it states that we're taxing their obesity. Moreover, your mechanism leaves people who are in excellent shape because they are physically active but eat bad food (e.g., a construction worker) in an awkward position in which they would almost certainly change their behavior, even though they create none of the problems that you're trying to target. Your system, in short, only envisions sedentary office workers even though you seek to apply it across all of society.

What proportion of the public is physically active as a part of their jobs?

I have no idea, nor does my argument rely upon any fixed proportion of the populace to be active.

How would they, or society in general, be harmed, if the physically active eat better?

Because you're forcing their lifestyle to change compared to the demonstrable ex ante state. Of course they're going to be worse off.

Further, you are assuming that reducing obesity is the only benefit that should be considered in this, ignoring any of the nutritional benefits from people getting less salt, sugar, oil, and fat in their diets, which include the physically active, like construction workers.

Well, my argument doesn't really rely upon that. But enlighten me: the health effects of salt that I've seen have almost invariably been limited to things like hypertension (which has no symptoms). As for reducing sugar, oil and fat out of their diets, those are just buzz words for calories, and if the person's fit then they're obviously not having a problem with calories.

With regards to portion sizes, buffets might be a little impractical to solve with direct action, save taxing them into oblivion. Potentially, restricting the number of times a customer could pass through the line (say, two times) might work, save for the problem of competitors offering unlimited times through (after all, they can afford it now). Cultural change might be better. Taxing large portions is a good idea, especially since better and more expensive restaurants tend to serve smaller portions already. Convincing cheaper restaurants to do so would help. Another idea might be to encourage the addition of roughage or vegetables to portions but not taxing those as heavily/at all.

So in other words you want to tax junk food and tax salad bars (which people in junk food restaurants often go to in order to avoid eating junk food) into oblivion? And this makes sense?

Also, it's easy to say "cultural change might be better," but cultural change is not something that can be relied upon when considering government action.

[Master of Ossus]

No, hon - no grocery stores. Period. Just the ONE 7/11. That was, admittedly, the nadir but I wasn't kidding or exaggerating. There was a number of YEARS the city of Detroit had no grocery stores.

Yes, it's the extreme. So what? There are parts of the west side of Chicago of equal geographic area with a very similar problem even today. Chicago, however, has a mass transit system that enables even the poor without cars to get to a real, fully stocked store to buy healthy food.

Broomstick what is the source of this claim? The only articles I've been able to find on a "Detroit grocery crisis" have mentioned that national chains had abandoned the city, but they also talk about local grocers that were struggling to navigate the city and finding that it was really tough. For instance, this one talks about how Detroit was cultivating local grocers in lieu of national chains like Safeway's and Kroger's because city planners had concluded that they were unlikely to be able to woo the big chains to come back into the area because of poor perceptions of the Detroit market.

[Broomstick]

Detroit is an extreme example, though. Most US cities don't have things quite so poor as no groceries for a million people. I doubt that Detroit lacked any grocery stores altogether, just major chain grocers.

No, hon - no grocery stores. Period. Just the ONE 7/11. That was, admittedly, the nadir but I wasn't kidding or exaggerating. There was a number of YEARS the city of Detroit had no grocery stores.

Yes, it's the extreme. So what? There are parts of the west side of Chicago of equal geographic area with a very similar problem even today. Chicago, however, has a mass transit system that enables even the poor without cars to get to a real, fully stocked store to buy healthy food.

They lacked anything beyond a 7/11 for more than a million people (since this was, I presume, years back)? What the fuck. How did everybody not die of scurvy? When was this, out of curiosity?

1980's through at least the 1990's, perhaps even later. I think the city had dropped below a million by then, but still over half a million.

The key to remember here is that the city of Detroit itself is rather small in land area for such a (formerly) dense city. Unlike may large cities it's didn't absorb that many suburbs/outlying towns, and most people had cars of some sort so they were able to leave the city limits to get food. It was still awkward and significant distance to travel, however, which also drove up the expense.

As for Chicago, that's a real city, not a husk of one left half-dead. Are these areas of Chicago suburban, or urban proper?

Urban. Definitely within the city limits.

Further, what do you mean by "of equal geographic area?" The same size as Detroit?

Yes.

Depending on how impoverished the neighborhoods were/are, I can definitely see that in a more urban area, particularly if it's too crime-ridden/impoverished for smaller groceries to open.

Basically, it's the west side where the 1960's riots occurred.

[Broomstick]

Broomstick what is the source of this claim?

My memory of the local news (print and broadcast) from the early 1980's before I moved out of the Detroit area. Sorry, I have no knowledge of on-line sources, unless you're willing to pay for access to the Detroit News and/or Detroit Free Press archives.

The only articles I've been able to find on a "Detroit grocery crisis" have mentioned that national chains had abandoned the city, but they also talk about local grocers that were struggling to navigate the city and finding that it was really tough. For instance, this one talks about how Detroit was cultivating local grocers in lieu of national chains like Safeway's and Kroger's because city planners had concluded that they were unlikely to be able to woo the big chains to come back into the area because of poor perceptions of the Detroit market.

The poor perception stemmed from the crime rate - people weren't just holding up groceries for money, sometimes they were holding it up for the food. They pulled out because it was too fucking dangerous for the workers and no one could break even, much less turn a profit, due to all the losses. The city was always trying to get someone to set up shop, and some ambitious person would try it only to give up in bankruptcy some time later.