Major overhaul of US life urged to cure obesity: experts

[coyotes_geek]

I bet fast food companies would either just lower their prices or introduce paid memberships offering a card that deducts the amount of tax on your total. Not a bad idea, but impossible to enforce effectively.

Not necessarily. I'd think they just pass those costs along the same way corner stores pass along tobacco taxes.

[Blake]

Hmm. So me not taking your questions seriously means I can't be serious about a junk food tax?

Any slappy can toss out silly ideas. You aren't really serious because you have no details worked out.

Well, I can't say that I think most people of average intelligence or better would have connected those dots in the manner you have, but far be it from me try and tell you what to think.

When I go to the grocery store, I can purchase beef, buns, cheese, bacon and produce with no tax at all.

When Mcdonalds puts that same chunk of ground beef on a piece of bread, you want to call it junk food and slap an excessive tax on it.

I know you are an Aggie but I thought you yourself were at least of average intelligence.

[coyotes_geek]

Any slappy can toss out silly ideas. You aren't really serious because you have no details worked out.

Ok.

When I go to the grocery store, I can purchase beef, buns, cheese, bacon and produce with no tax at all.

Ok.

When Mcdonalds puts that same chunk of ground beef on a piece of bread, you want to call it junk food and slap an excessive tax on it.

Yes.

I know you are an Aggie but I thought you yourself were at least of average intelligence.

Ok.

[Blake]

Yes.

stupid, but ok.

[Blake]

You are right. All I can do is and complain about the problem. I have no real solution.

Perhaps criminalizing obesity? Misdomenor or something to that effect. Texas does this if your child misses school. Perhaps we can pass a weight law that if your child reaches a certain unhealthy weight you get fined. You can draft exceptions that would exempt certain individuals with conditions.

They could also implement taxes on soda and other extremely unhealthy foods. (i.e. fast food tax). We do it with tabaco and alcohol.

This just popped up on Yahoo. Sheer coincidence.

A 9-year-old Ohio boy who once weighted more than 200 pounds and was removed from his mother's custody has been returned to her care.

The boy who had had slimmed down to 166 lbs., according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is now 173 lbs. The newspaper story reported the case drew national attention last fall when Cuyahoga County Children & Family Services removed the boy from his mother's care when caseworkers said she wasn't doing enough to control his weight, which was 218 pounds at the time.

....

"We are happy the county terminated protective services. We think the case was ill-advised," Hardiman told Reuters. "Our plan was to get him out of the system as soon as possible. This whole thing has been about his weight with no concern to his emotional state."

This was the first time an Ohio child was removed from a parent's custody mainly due to weight issues.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...143407172.html

[boutons_deux]

150 excess calories per = +15 pounds fat/year.

Why It Matters That California Teens Eat Less Than Their Peers

So, can 158 fewer calories a day have any meaningful impact on the complex obesity problem?

The daily swing of a 158 calories may sound trivial, but over the course of the year this can really add up, explains Dave Grotto, RD, president and founder of Chicago nutritional counseling firm, Nutrition Housecall LLC. "That can mean 15 pounds a year - gained or lost- depending on which side of the calorie equation you are on."

Yep, it sounds shocking. But here's how the math works: 100 calories x 365 days = 36,500 calories. There are 3,500 calories are in a pound of fat. So that would be 10 pounds. 150 calories extra or less than what is needed to maintain weight will produce a 15 pound weight swing.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...s?sc=17&f=1003

[Winehole23]

1500 calories a day seems to be a good level for me. I've lost 35 lbs in eight months. Weigh slightly under 200 lbs now.To lose another 20 (college playing weight) I'd probably have to start playing soccer again, but I've been lookin forward to that.

Pickup basketball has also been threatening to happen to me of late...

[boutons_deux]

One in 5 Kids Is Obese, Yet Congress Is More Concerned With Protecting Profits Than Kids' Health

Childhood obesity affects one in five Americans under 18—15 million or more kids, with the highest rates in communities of color, according to public health scientists. Advocates, who add in overweight youths, call it an “unprecedented national health crisis” that affects one in three kids. Extended into adulthood, obesity accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s healthcare expenses. Indeed, as two lawmakers who pushed for the marketing changes last year wrote, “Children today are likely to be the first generation to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.”

The paper trail showed the lengths to which corporate America will go to protect profits using every available means—campaign donations, attacking science, asserting corporate cons utional rights, and threatening federal agencies with smear campaigns—and how nearly 200 lawmakers from both parties piled onto their tirade, ignoring a nationwide health epidemic affecting millions of children and teenagers, to say nothing of adults. The evidence—especially letters attacking the initiative signed by scores of lawmakers from both parties—shows how ingrained protecting profits, not standing up for the public interest, is in Congress and Washington’s corporate lobbying culture.

the Federal Trade Commission, which in early 2011 drafted voluntary marketing guidelines. Federal scientists found most of the foods marketed to kids and teenagers were sugary and fat-laden. The FTC put together nutrition and marketing suggestions coupled with a let-industry-police-itself approach.

The FTC’s voluntary effort was ravaged on Capitol Hill. The paper trail that traced its undoing over a six-month period is staggering, particularly how so many members of Congress unabashedly assisted corporate lobbyists. Democrats who view themselves as liberal on children’s issues, such as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, wrote to the FTC to question, water-down, impugn or attack the voluntary marketing guidelines.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155394

iow, America is a nation of bigger and more numerous greasebags because UCA make $100Bs from inducing/stuffing them with crap, 24/7. High-calorie density is also high profit margin .

[boutons_deux]

[boutons_deux]

More UCA industrial/marketing bull that makes Americans fat

HFCS’s lower cost is one of the main reasons for its subs ution for sucrose.

HFCS-42 (one of the blends of HFCS) cost an average of 13.6 cents per pound in 2005, while the price of wholesale refined beet sugar averaged 29.5 cents per pound. Also, because HFCS is a liquid, it is easier to blend into many foods than sugar. HFCS is commonly used to sweeten soft drinks, sport drinks, and numerous processed foods, such as ketchup, crackers, bread, soups, cereals, and spaghetti sauce.

Over the past 35 years, the total amount of added sugars and caloric sweeteners available in the U.S. food supply grew 19 percent, from 119 pounds per person in 1970 to 142 pounds per person in 2005, according to ERS’s per capita food availability data.

Since peaking in 1999, however, HFCS availability has dropped to 59 pounds per person in 2005, as no-calorie bottled water and diet soft drinks have grown in popularity at the expense of regular carbonated soft drinks.

[boutons_deux]

High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0322204628.htm

fructose is metabolized in the liver, sucrose isn't.

Co-incident with the huge increase in cheap HFCS in damn near everything since the 1970s, there has been a huge increase NAFLD, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. iow, it's highly likely the UCA's injecting HFCS is pathogenic.

[boutons_deux]

The Terrifying Truth About America's Obesity Epidemic

"If we reduced our caloric intake by a hundred calories, it would cost the industry about $36-$40 billion every year. It's sort of like the energy industry isn't really excited about programs to become more energy efficient, because they don't earn anything when we're buying fewer gallons. The same problem besets the food industry and really is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to dealing with obesity."

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155398

yep, BigFood requires and facilitates overweight and obesity to sustain/increase its profits.

And the sick-care industry LOVES people who self-inflict themselves with pathogenc S.A.D.

[boutons_deux]

How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

"Typical Afghan civilians and soldiers would have been 140 pounds or so as adults. And when we operated on them, what we were aware of was the absence of any fat or any adipose tissue underneath the skin," Patterson says. "Of course, when we operated on Canadians or Americans or Europeans, what was normal was to have most of the organs encased in fat. It had a visceral potency to it when you could see it directly there."

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/24/132745...the-world-sick

[RandomGuy]

Real food being affordable isn't the problem. The unwillingness of Americans to sacrifice couch/TV time to exercise and cook for themselves is.

That is way too simplistic.


What about food deserts?

There's a battle for better health going on in poor neighborhoods across the country, and part of that battle involves getting people living in so-called food deserts access to healthy food.

But as many activists have learned, it takes a combination of access, innovation, and education to change peoples' habits for the better.

Duane Perry stepped into the struggle by accident twenty years ago. He founded an organization called The Food Trust that set up farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods of Philadelphia. At the time, he wasn't thinking about what makes people healthy or sick. The lack of grocery stores in these neighborhoods just seemed like an issue of basic fairness.


"We'd go out and hear stories from little kids who'd say, 'My grandmother has to go out to the suburbs; she has to borrow a car from a friend to go once a month to get fresh fruits and vegetable; why is that?'" says Perry...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...d-desert-bloom

ThiLuck_The_Fakers_nk fast: How clLuck_The_Fakers_oseLuck_The_Fakers_ do you live to your local grocery store? Most of us don't know. As long as it's close to home, it's not a problem. But when you don't have a local grocery store, or you have one but it's too far away to get to without transportation, figuring out how you'll buy your groceries becomes a big problem.

For the past decade, Americans have driven an average of 6 miles (9 kilometers) between home and their closest grocery store. For rural Americans, especially those in the South, the trip can be much longer -- for example, in the food landscape of the Lower Mississippi Delta, you'll likely find one supermarket serving a 190.5-square-mile (493-square-kilometer) area. There, residents could expect to drive 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more from home to store [source: Hinrichs]. This phenomenon is called a food desert.

...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...ood-desert.htm

[RandomGuy]

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO (am I being too subtle?)


Yes, let the FDA keep ensuring that food is safe. It is NOT the govt's job to tell me my kids can't have a ing cheeseburger.

Whose job is it?

If you don't teach your kids good habits that affects me and my kids.

You do understand that the costs of this problem are collectively paid in everything you buy and sell, right?

Collective problems generally require a pooling of resources. That is how civilization works.

[coyotes_geek]

That is way too simplistic.


What about food deserts?

Food deserts would be taxed as junk food.

Ok, serious response.

What about food deserts? Yes, rural Americans have to travel further to get to grocery stores. That's pretty much the definition of what rural is.

As for grocery stores not being common in poor neighborhoods, that's a problem of convienence, not expense. Undoubtedly it's a huge pain in the ass to borrow a car or take the bus to get to the grocery store. That doesn't make it cheaper to eat every meal at whatever fast food joint is within walking distance.

[boutons_deux]

Beautiful aspects of conservative's Rugged Individualism is that

All Men Are Islands,

All Men must have complete freedom, but no responsibility for themselves or anything else (Christ is gonna fix everything come End Time anway, so why worry?),

the Common Good is Communist Good.

Their motto is United We Stand (is socialism, so let's divide and conquer), Divided We Fall (only others fall, not me nor mine).

[Blake]

Food deserts would be taxed as junk food.

Ok, serious response.

What about food deserts? Yes, rural Americans have to travel further to get to grocery stores. That's pretty much the definition of what rural is.

As for grocery stores not being common in poor neighborhoods, that's a problem of convienence, not expense. Undoubtedly it's a huge pain in the ass to borrow a car or take the bus to get to the grocery store. That doesn't make it cheaper to eat every meal at whatever fast food joint is within walking distance.

You want to slap a tax on ”real food” that's prepared by Mcdonalds, just because it's Mcdonalds.

[coyotes_geek]

You want to slap a tax on ”real food” that's prepared by Mcdonalds, just because it's Mcdonalds.

Ok.

[RandomGuy]

Food deserts would be taxed as junk food.

Ok, serious response.

What about food deserts? Yes, rural Americans have to travel further to get to grocery stores. That's pretty much the definition of what rural is.

As for grocery stores not being common in poor neighborhoods, that's a problem of convienence, not expense. Undoubtedly it's a huge pain in the ass to borrow a car or take the bus to get to the grocery store. That doesn't make it cheaper to eat every meal at whatever fast food joint is within walking distance.

IF you had read either article, it is not restricted to rural neighborhoods.

"Too far" is quite a local measure.

"Pain in the ass" to take a bus is also a gross simplification of a very real limitation.

It is not possible to shop for 4 kids on a regular basis by taking a bus, unless you don't work at all.

The time required becomes prohibitively expensive when you can't take time from work.

[Blake]

Ok.

So you're ok with your opinion.

that's pretty neat.

Keep making the forum a better place with your silly ideas and posts.

[rjv]

if people want to get obese or morbidly fat that is their option. the real concern here is the burden this places on the health care industry. however, one can put to task more than the junk food industry as culprits for epidemics.

[rjv]

IF you had read either article, it is not restricted to rural neighborhoods.

"Too far" is quite a local measure.

"Pain in the ass" to take a bus is also a gross simplification of a very real limitation.

It is not possible to shop for 4 kids on a regular basis by taking a bus, unless you don't work at all.

The time required becomes prohibitively expensive when you can't take time from work.

i do often think one has to live in someone else's shoes to get perspective.

[coyotes_geek]

IF you had read either article, it is not restricted to rural neighborhoods.

Where are you getting the idea that I thought it was restricted to rural neighborhoods? My response specifically mentioned poor neighborhoods. I probably could have thrown in "urban", but that didn't dawn on me at the time. Regardless, I acknowledge and agree with you that it's not strictly a rural concern.

"Too far" is quite a local measure.

Agreed. It's all relative.

"Pain in the ass" to take a bus is also a gross simplification of a very real limitation.

I get it. It's inconvienent. It's also pretty simple concept that doesn't require much in the way of elaboration.

It is not possible to shop for 4 kids on a regular basis by taking a bus, unless you don't work at all.

The time required becomes prohibitively expensive when you can't take time from work.

Again, the inconvience is acknowledged. Convienence and expense are two different things though. Just because something is inconvienent doesn't mean it's more expensive.

[coyotes_geek]

So you're ok with your opinion.

that's pretty neat.

Keep making the forum a better place with your silly ideas and posts.

Thanks.

Great talk.