Quite a few German politicians are visibly overweight. I wonder how they will vote if this crackpot idea ever gets that far?

amanda

Amanda, you're in Germany, right? Is there a German equivalent of the food pyramid, and is it as asinine as ours? A little off topic, but I'm curious.

What's disturbing about this article is that instead of simply suggesting a junk food tax, they're targeting obese people. Junk food is bad for everyone. Even thin people can have malnutrition, T2D, and/or other burdensome health issues because of junk. Think of a student subsiding off chocolate bars and ramen noodles. You don't have to be obese to be unhealthy.

I can see the justification for taxing candy and chips, but where would they really draw the line? Will they tax butter and fatty steaks, too?

...and what about the taxation of other lifestyle choices that are burdensome on the health care system? Will they tax sports team registration fees, to help recover the costs of treating all those broken limbs, torn ligaments, and head injuries?

Pandora's box, for sure.

My boyfriend is German, and tells me that in Germany they have the same food pyramid as everywhere else in the "civilized" world.

He also tells me that he is rather confident that such a tax for overweight Germans will never happen
And I must admit, I tend to agree with him

Germans sure love their rye bread, salty salamis and tortes.

My Grandma makes a mean, from scratch black forest cake.

Sorry... what was the question?

Lets not forget Beer, Bratwurst, Knockwurst and potato salad!

I hope this doesn't happen. Here in Ontario, the government has never seen a tax it didn't like, so we would be next for sure.

ps. Stop making me hungrier than I already am!

Here in Norway, too, the food pyramid rules. Especially if you're diabetic...

Although, the last few years dr Fedon Lindberg has been changing many people's approach. Low-glycaemic diet, unfortunately he also advocates replacing sugar with pure fructose...

Every little step helps though

Hi Kristine,

There is indeed and, yes, it is!!!

In fact, just a few days ago, my youngest daughter brought home something from school: a fold-out "food pyramid", which was basically just promotional material produced by Kelloggs. Unbelievable!!!

In the middle of the pyramid, exactly at the point where your eyes are automatically drawn to, sits a big bowl with the words "Cerealien" stamped on it, in exactly the same font as is used by Kellogs on their boxes. The main message is then, of course, that the central focus of your diet should be on Kelloggs Cornflakes...

Incidentally, "Cerealien" is a word that has been brought into the German language by the breakfast cereal manufacturers some time in the last ten years, because it sounds a bit less pedestrian than the "proper", somewhat old-fashioned and stodgy-sounding German word, "Getreide", and of course now is understood to mean that non-food stuff you get in boxes, rather than the original meaning of "cereals", which just means "grains" (I think!!!).

It is amazing to see the power of marketing over our lives, how the introduction of just this one word has skewed people's perceptions of food.

amanda

How are they targeting obese people?


Soda and candy bars and chips are easy to tax, and the potential revenue is huge. These also have the added benefit of being unhealthy unanimously. This makes it an attractive policy option.


No one has ever thought of taxing butter and steak, except the members of this forum. This particular conspiracy has failed to pan out for the years it has been circulating here. Butter and steak is hard to tax, and the potential revenue is minor. This makes it an unattractive policy option, if any policymaker had ever considered it, which apparently none ever has.


I would guess that the burden of these things is dwarfed in comparison by the burden placed by obesity.

Jeez I know. Do people have no soul. Teach them to eat 52 servings of grains a day, then when they get "fat" and end up in the hospital, kick them in the head with a tax for it. Awesome!

Oh I don't know, because the title of the article reads
Overweight people should pay 'fat tax' to cover healthcare costs, German MP says

BUTTER: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/349682

"New Zealanders eat more butter per head than any other nationality and Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson says that's why our cholesterol levels are also among the world's highest.

"We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter. It's the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand. It's about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison." "

BEEF: http://www.themonthly.com.au/peter-...d-beef-tax-2322

"Citing the adverse health impacts (most particularly the high incidence of bowel cancer amongst meat-eaters) and the environmental impact of meat production, [Peter] Singer believes the rational and ethical response should be the introduction of a specific tax on red meat."

You realize that this is a press release by a margarine company.


I stand corrected. ONE person outside of the membership of this forum has mentioned a steak tax. So allow me to rephrase: No one has ever thought of taxing butter and steak, except the members of this forum and total-nobody PETA types.

Is it too much for us to ask that you read the news story before you reply?