I've long said that if the government taxes cigarettes and alcohol, they should also tax fatty foods. They should also provide subsidies for healthy food options in restaurants if American's health is truly the goal. Too many people are economically forced into fast food and vending machine meals because nutritious options are too expensive and hard to locate. There are also many terrible foods masquerading as healthy alternatives and that leads many people to just give up trying.
I still don't think that's right. Taxing fatty foods winds up punishing people with really REALLY low incomes that are so unfortunate they actually have to survive on it. And I'm not just talking people who have to eat McD's every day because the parents can't cook, I'm talking people that have to gorge themselves on Banquet frozen dinners and Jolly Fun generic sodas to fatten themselves up so they don't starve. What would I Do? Tax the companies MAKING the stuff. Make THEM pay for the health programs.
The problem with those taxes, if the cigarette ones have anything to do with it, get caught up in an endless bureaucracy and don't really go to fund those wonderful health incentives they're supposed to go to, leaving the only anti-Smoking programs to be backhand funded by the tobacco companies themselves. If this stuff actually were better managed I wouldn't mind, but a lot of these places introduce taxes on junk food to close budget gaps that previous politicians left after cutting taxes and slashing budgets unwisely.... but that's another rant for another day.
Here's the problem exactly, and we ALL need to read this. This is not me being "Crazy" and "Ignorable."
Why is everyone so unhealthy? Desk jobs. Desk jobs that keep everyone sitting down all day, drinking sugary energy drinks and sugary coffees eating sugary snacks to keep awake during the long droning day of sitting behind the desk and not moving, coming home so stressed and tired from not moving all day that they refuse to move the rest of the night. And on the weekends, they're so wiped from not moving, they refuse to move.
The same thing is happening to kids. We force them to do so well in school because they have to learn to take standardized test after standardized test to get funding (another rant that shouldn't get left behind), they cut their recess, they feed them cheap junk that makes McD's food look like raw bran by comparison, they take away their gym and physical education classes thanks to said budget cuts. Even if they had recess, you can't play Dodgeball cuz someone will get hurt, you can't play tag, because that's somehow the road to sexual harassment, and all these other silly no nos from PC parental groups. Basically they're illegalizing them running around and playing too, and the schools are quick to comply to avoid lawsuits, because we live in lawsuit country.
Not to mention kids, as equally stressed out as mom and pop lock themselves in their rooms (after the endless hours of busywork homework so they can fill in all those little circles) with a carton of Doritos and a case of Red Bull and their X-Box and age inappropriate games.
And no one is trying to stop ANY of that, and that's the biggest problem we have. Face it, kids are pampered and spoiled today, they don't move at all, which is the trade off... You were supposed to be able to eat all that garbage, and run around for hours and pretend to be super heroes and actually be a kid, but then little Johnny might get a skinned knee. it's very VERY depressing and very very true.