Taxes, childhood obesity and a new cookbook

With obesity rates soaring, the Governor of New York has proposed an 18 percent tax on non-diet sodas or sugary juice drinks. That’s a good idea for two reasons. It will raise money for health care. And it might lead consumers to drink healthier beverages.

With the deep-pocketed soda industry ginning up its lobbying muscle to fight Gov. Paterson’s proposal, the fat tax will need some adept salesmanship. So the State Health Commissioner went to his kitchen table and created a YouTube video making the case for the new tax.

I gather not everyone thinks obesity is an issue that government should get involved in and one viewer wrote:  “Maybe we should tax thin people for being obnoxious ****? Let’s see, what else can we tax, most people have hair, and we could tax that too. Or how about that ugly shirt you got on, we should tax you for A) buying and B) wearing such an ugly shirt in public”.

Some of the comments get a lot snarkier than that — and in some cases, they get undeniably offensive.

These taxes may be unpopular, but the health benefits are undeniable.  When the taxes on cigarettes were increased the smoking rate went down to less than 20 percent of Americans smoking (from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).  Lung cancer rates have finally begun to decline and as a result, we are all healthier.

Just as cigarette tax has helped reduce the number of smokers (plus the reduction of advertising), and smoke related deaths, a tax on high caloric, non-nutritional beverages can help reduce the prevalence of obesity.

To address the obesity crises, Governor Peterson would like to take junk food out of the schools and encourage the children to exercise more, and increase the availability of healthy food in underserved communities.

While New Yorkers may not like paying a surcharge on what is undeniably a favorite drink, it is a small price to pay for our children’s health and a good start on the future of healthy lifestyles.

There certainly are some flaws with Governor Peterson’s attempt to reduce our waistlines and that is he is only including regular sodas and juice drinks, but is diet soda that much healthier and while they have banned trans fat in restaurants there is still an overload of fast food restaurants selling high fat fried food…why not tax these guys as well plus ban the television advertisements geared to Saturday morning children television.    According to the Federal Trade Commission the food industry spends $1.6 billion in advertising towards children.  Apparently Coco-Cola has an ad in the Canadian Medical Journal assuring doctors that the company has not marketed its products to children for the last 50 years. (I wonder who paid for the advertising in the movie theatres for those high end commercials for Coke? What about the promotion of Coke in the schools vending machines? All done by some mysterious person without Coco-Cola’s knowledge - lucky them!)

I think that 100% of this new tax revenue on the sales of soda should go towards an aggressive ad campaign that shows the effects of soda consumption and it should be geared to children during their television shows.

It’s a start…then they can target the high fat junk food products such as French fries, snack cakes, cheezies, jumbo sizing meals, etc.

On a totally different note: I picked up a great present today at the post office.  My sister in-law sent me a cookbook from the Canyon Ranch (boot camp).  I collect cookbooks and this one is geared towards healthy and low calorie balanced foods.  It will give me some new foods to try out on unsuspecting friends. Thanks Ella!