Weight of the Nation - Obesity Conference Seeks to Solve Crisis

by Kristen Seymour (Subscribe to Kristen Seymour's posts)
Jul 28th 2009 9:00AM

Photo: bethography - meltingmama, Flickr

It's not news that obesity in the United States has become a serious issue. Not only is it damaging on a personal level, but on a national one. For example, obesity has cost the state of California alone an estimated $41 billion yearly in health care and other factors. And, a study found spending on obesity-related conditions has doubled over the past 10 years and now accounts for 9.1 percent of medical spending.

In fact, it's a big enough problem that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is holding its inaugural Weight of the Nation Conference on Obesity Prevention and Control. The conference began yesterday and will go through tomorrow, and you can keep up with it on Twitter by following @CDC_eHealth or searching #won09.

It's certainly going to be interesting to see what decisions and legislation ultimately come out of this conference -- acknowledging the gravity of the situation is certainly a step in the right direction. But what will the next step be?

One of the more extreme ideas in the blogosphere is taxing the fat to fund healthcare. The idea behind this is that those who eat a fatty diet and don't exercise are living an unhealthy life by choice, and therefore, should be required to pay more toward healthcare than those who eat right and work out.

What about a higher tax on fatty foods and soda like the tax on tobacco? Those Little Debbies might be less appealing if they cost more, right?

You probably have some thoughts and ideas of your own on this subject -- let 'em fly in the comments!

Comments (5)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lisa 7-28-2009 @ 11:30AM

Oh my gosh! I can't believe they want fat people to pay higher taxes! Yeah, sure, we want to be fat, and should pay the price. Is that it? Cuz I'm telling you, I don't want to be fat. And I struggle with it. I surely couldn't afford to pay higher taxes. Not to mention, it costs more to eat the healthy foods. Why don't they do something about that? I have a family to feed and the less healthy foods are way cheaper!

Jessie 7-28-2009 @ 11:51AM

I think that paying more for health care would just cause an uproar, to be honest. The idea of putting a tax on blatantly unhealthy foods- little debbies for example- is a great solution. Raise the tax on processed and fatty foods and lower the prices of fresh produce and healthy foods. This would also reduce the amount of families who are unhealthy because of costs

u262f 7-28-2009 @ 3:20PM

Nutritional science isn't good enough to tax based on it. It's very difficult to tell how "fat" a person is. The terms "obese" and "overweight" are defined in BMI, and BMI is NOT a measure of fat. A very muscular person can have very little fat and be "obese" according to the BMI definition. Besides, what about the studies that a bit of extra fat might actually help people be healthier under certain conditions?

Furthermore, if we tax food, are we sure we know which ones are bad and good? It wasn't that long ago when we were taught that all carbs were good and all fats were evil, but now we we have "good" omega-3 fats and "evil" refined carbs. However, bodies aren't so simplistic, and it's a balance. "Good" fats are only called "good" because the "average American diet" gets plenty of "bad" fats, so the "good" ones balance them out. "Good" fats turn bad (and "bad" fats turn good) if the balance shifted, and food taxes might be just the thing to change the balance for some people.

I think part of the question is, if we're going to do this, is there any point to universal health care at all? Even if we assume that, in general, overweight people are unhealthy and normal BMI people are healthy, there are always exceptions. Why should the muscular healthy high-BMI people who never have problems have to pay extra, but not the anorexics and the normal-weight-obesity ones who might constantly be in the hospital? Doing stuff like this just creates more and more unfairness in the system. Also, if they tax the people, dangerous quick-fix diet gimmicks seem likely to become much more popular right before people go in for their physicals. We might be creating worse future "epidemics" in an attempt to control this one.

Matt 7-29-2009 @ 4:56PM

Taxing the fat sounds extreme and discriminatory. What would be more constructive is to take a close look at how changes in public policies can lead to more active lifestyles and better eating habits. Don't tax fat people because they are fat, tax the processed and sugary foods that are making them fat, and subsidize the cost of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. This video has some great perspectives from the Onion and the New Yorker.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/the_weight_of_weight