Americans, the fattest people in the world!

Well how about a whole store full of them? They do seem to be more common than skinny people or normal sized people. Losing weight isn't a secret it is called exercise, watching calories, no porcessed food and moderation.

 

Oh the good old apocalyptic, scare-tactic propaganda about privatised healthcare resulting in a simple check up costing a bazillion dollars.

An insurance does not at all have to be that expensive, especially not if there is free market competition. Sure, there will always be poor people and people with serious diseases, but it is not like malign cancer tumours are less dangerous if there is universal healthcare.

Sweden has universal healthcare and the politicaö elite actually buys their own private insurances abroad to avoid the messy, Swedish healthcare they themselcves have created.

Furthermore,, if you have to pay for your actions you will become more responsible and cautious. Often do I hear part of the problem with American obesity is the food served in public schhols, well how about closing the school instead of vlosing the chicken nuggets factory? Idiots.

Anyways, this is not the thread to discuss private vs public health care. So, back to topic!

Some people do suffer from being overweight and I do understand many of them actually try to lose weight but struggle. But, at the end of the day it is still they themselves who have put themselves in the situation they are in. The same goes for the other side of the spectrum that is anorexia; it is not Tyra Bank's fault that "the girl next door" shoves her fingers down her throat. It is her crappy parents, silly friends and her own lack of discipline.

 

Also a guaranteed trip to the doctor for a sugar spike and probably diabetes..

 

Looking back, I realise I was addicted to soda from about age 13 to 15; I had one can of Coke (33 cls) almost every single day of the week but never gained a pound of weight and neither did I gain diabetes and my teeth did not rot because I kept taking care of them.

 

You are definitely not the norm in today's age. Weight is hard to control if you don't pay attention to yourself. You are lucky.

 

Where is the fun in not being a victim these days?

 

And a lot of it is those charts are way off normal. I am considered over weight for my height and would have to become anorexic to reach my ideal weight. I am what people would call "big-boned"--literally. Even my orthopedic doctor when I broke one on the little bones in my wrist commented on me having big bones for my height. I think either being born premature or almost dying when I was 3 stunted my upward growth since I am shorter than my brothers who range from 6'2" to 6' 5". Even my sister is 5' 10" as was my mom until she started shrinking.

 

I've heard the theory, but I don't believe it. Walmart is everywhere and they have fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats. However, people choose not to eat them.

 

agree 100%, fresh healthy food is out there, if you want it, and self prepared meals are much better for you than the frozen entree crap.

This thread is making me hungry.

 

Case in point:


"we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen"

I remember the snarky Alaskan Bimbo attacking Michelle Obama for trying to get kids interested in eating vegetables :
"Take her anti-obesity thing that she is on. She is on this kick, right. What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat. And I know I’m going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician’s wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track."

I seriously doubt Palin could spell Obesity.

 

Well the primary reason for this is demographics---the more Blacks---the more overweight people a state will have.

I imagine Mississippi was one of the thinnest states back 100 years ago. Most people worked on farms, and the savage heat and humidity would sweat the calories and fat right away.

Now, the vast number of Blacks in places like Mississippi are inside, often licking food stamps inside Section 8 housing with free utilities.

Other people, like Native Americans are significantly overweight. The best example are the Pima Indians. Over the eons, these Natives had to survive in the hostile Western deserts. Those who could most effectively store fat and had low metabolism would be more likely to live. Once they were given welfare and allowed to goof off and eat modern fast food, they have become among the most unhealthy people around.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/69/4/747S.full

 

Sometimes that is due to consumption of mass quantities of hydrogenated oil ("Crisco"). Hydrogenated oil is stored in the cell wall because it is hard to metabolize, and it is hard to get it out of the cell wall because it is hard to metabolize.

 

Just a bit racist. W.Virginia, North Dakota, and New Mexico are listed there as "fat states" yet they have some of the lowest populations of blacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-American_population

 

New Mexico has an abundance of Native Americans (heavier folks). Looking at the top 10, most have large percentages of Blacks.

Looking at the rule more than the exceptions.

 

No seriously, we spend $10,000 per capita which is absolutely unaffordable while other countries only spend $3,000. We actually spend $4,000 in Medicare to pay for 35% of the population which is more than other countries pay to cover 100%. This is because our system is fundamentally wasteful and it is estimated that at least $1 trillion out of the 3 trillion we spend yearly on healthcare is wasted. Healthcare costs traditionally increase from 5% to 10% in most years far outstripping inflation of just 2-3% and stagnant wages. Before Obamacare 50 million people were uninsured because they could pay and most bankruptcies involve healthcare costs and in most of those healthcare related ones they are actually insured. These massive increases in costs are one reason government welfare spending has continued to increase and has been a big contributor to our national debt which is now 100% of the economy. Please, be scared.

We do have free market competition. Most people have private insurance and hospitals and drug companies are privately run.

Cancer can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat and it is far cheaper to treat in other places. Getting cancer is one of the reasons many people go bankrupt.

But that private insurance is probably far more expensive and not affordable for most people. Sweden has healthcare spending on the higher end and spends $5,000 per capita which is half what we pay.

Public school aren't the only reason for obesity and most junk food eaten is eaten outside them. Instead of closing schools why don't we just remove the junk good vending machines and serve healthy meals?

Its not some people. Its 66% of the population. Its because we are hard-wired to like fatty foods and corporations make their foods to take advantage of this addiction on purpose. They are basically hacking our taste bugs. A big part of self-control is making the bad thing too hard to do and to remove yourself from the situation. That is hard to do when there is junk food literally everywhere. Junk food is making our healthcare less affordable, and also resulting in the military having fewer fit recruits to choose from and can become a serious problem if we get into a major war. We have to do taxes anyway, why not tax the things that are harming our society instead of taxing earning money? We have seen how much taxing cigarettes has helped reduce this problem and change lives.

 

We don't need warning labels everyone knows what junk food is.

If you don't eat a lot of junk food then you won't really be affected. I would balance those taxes by lowering taxes for small business and the middle class. If you only spend $5 a week on junk food then you will have to pay maybe only $1.50 more in taxes and get those other tax cuts.

No regulation just tax.

No regulation just tax, you could still drink a gallon of it a day if you want.

I do not support taxing food that increases your chance of cancer by a tiny amount, only junk good, so no tomatoes aren't junk food and won't be taxed. Thats the kind of food we are actually trying to get people to eat. This is like saying taxing cigarettes will lead to taxing nicotine gum. It makes no sense.

 

Brownies are like $1.50. Would it hurt to pay $2.10 instead? Its like how you get taxed if you want to smoke a victory cigar or have a drink with some friends.

 

I know a lot of people like that and only a tiny percent of people are fat because of genetics. If I were in charge they would be paying higher taxes for their habit.

 

I suppose you are in love since you managed to quote ChrisL on a post written by me lolz.

Why not cut all taxes instead so that normal people can afford normal food and so that normal producers can produce normal food?

I still do not believe in "sin taxes". It is just a stupid concept and nothing but a stupid concept.

It does make alot of sense. Libertarians and Conservatives actually half-sarcastly said that "next, they will tax soda" after the tobacco-tax had been implemented and then, that was labelled as "slippery slope" and with "don't be silly"-comments.

 

No need to tax them. Fatties would be paying a higher price for their healt insurances if I was in charge.

 

Not entirely, no.

Tough luck.

The average Swede pays nearly 4500$/year in tax for his healthcare. In Germany one can get a private insurance for half that price. Add to this that Swedish healthcare is very insufficient with a shortage of specialists and nurses, the longest waiting-times in EU and if you need an operation or go to the emergency, you will most likely die before getting help.

Why don't you just mind your own business?

Yeah, sure. Just tax everything that is harmful because obviously we are way too dumb to know what is good for us. Especially dumb are the poor who just go around drinking soda not knowing it will give them diabetes which results in healthcare they cannot afford, right?

What is taxed also decreases, but this does not mean it du0isappears. Many times is the demand just replaced with something else. Taxing soda and McNuggets would just result in people consuming some other junk that is not taxed. Many times have we seen people shifting preference to even more dangerous alternatives.

 

I didn't say entirely. Almost all hospitals are private. All drug companies are private. All insurance companies are private. Medicare and Medicaid are public but its going to be difficult for you to argue this is driving up prices since they are only such a small part and are actually cheaper than private insurance.

Things didn't used to be this way with healthcare being so unaffordable and nowhere else in the world is it like this. You may be a strict libertarian but I believe in government policies when they help people and save more than a trillion dollars.

So I guess we shouldn't be emulating Sweden then. But no matter how bad they are compared to they still are far better than the US system. Why don't we look at the most successful healthcare systems and see what we can emulate? Germany by no means has a free market system and they have universal care and its a system that works well.

I wouldn't mind having a private system but we need to find a way to make our healthcare costs equivalent to the rest of the developed world and save money. Think of what we can do with more than 1 trillion dollars of savings. If we get our costs to what they are in Europe we will save 2 trillion. We can close the national debt, boost our military, cut taxes, or pay for universal college. But you can't just say the solution is to get the government out without showing how the government is the problem.

The public schools are part of the government and as a voter the government and what it does is my business. If they are feeding garbage to students, then that is something that should be stopped.

I don't believe in taxing everything that is harmful, only things that have gotten so harmful they are causing a national crisis. Everyone knows junk food is bad for them and most people try to cut back but as I said before these foods are made to hack the human brain which was built to seek out the highest calorie foods to survive. In a way, all of us have a neurological disorder when it comes to food, and companies are taking advantage of that. You act like people have unlimited free will, but the reality is that self-control is limited, and that is why 66% of people are overweight. If you leave the choice to people, they will just continue to over-eat and we will continue to be the fattest country in the world. How can the fattest people in the world be the greatest people? I take it that you are against all sin taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and against all drug laws. Am I correct?

We can word the laws more generally and adapt the law to attempts to get around it. By this reasoning sin taxes against alcohol and cigarettes would have failed because they would have found loopholes but those laws are worded in ways to not allow this.

 

Two questions. Are you going to force insurance companies to do this? Doesn't that kind of conflict with your free market philosophy? Also aren't significantly higher rates for fat people just going to make their healthcare unaffordable? That seems like a draconian thing to do holding healthcare hostage for weight loss, I prefer the more moderate solution on taxing the products. Why not be reasonable in how much we raise their rates and do the rest with food taxes? We can use these taxes to cut taxes or spend them on things that are beneficial like closing the national debt, or funding our military, or building roads?

 

What ever tax cut offer you make, I can always offer a bigger one with those sin taxes on junk food to pay for it with the same impact on budget. Sin taxes on junk food will allow us to make more tax cuts and cut the deficit more.

They really worked with cigarettes and making smoking an expensive habit helped drop the smoking rate from 45% to less than 20% today. And we did this without a draconian ban on them.

But you forget that there is virtually no support for taxing soda and there is no evidence that it will ever be a law so your slippery slope fallacy slips up. Also junk food is now causing more damage than cigarettes and alcohol so it makes sense to tax them too because they are harmful. Taxing tomatoes makes no sense because it is actually more beneficial not more harmful.

 

Isn't that normal, though? It's what kids do where we live. Some from considerable distance. AND we're in a mountainous area.