Let’s Tax Fizzy Drinks!
There has been a call this morning, for a tax to be put on fizzy sugary drinks. It’s reported here on the BBC.
I would not be affected by such a tax, as I suppose the only high sugar drink, I take is the odd smoothie, when I need to take my pills out.
I did however chat to someone yesterday, who has retired from a job, where they looked after obesity and diabetes in the community. Judging by that pair of jobs, there is a serious connection between being overweight and getting diabetes.
So perhaps, it would be a good idea to try to cut down on all that sugar! On the other hand, we perhaps shouldn’t go for artificial sweeteners, as many like the outspoken, DogtorJ, believe them to be a problem. He incidentally is a vet, who is a coeliac, and has come to some interesting research-based conclusions.
I doubt we’ll ever see a tax on fizzy drinks, as the industry wouldn’t allow it and I suspect, it would be a vote loser.
This Policeman Isn’t Fat!
This policeman, who the Mail claims is at the heart of the Plebgate affair, was virtually told he was fat on Radio 5 this morning in the Double Take program.
If I were to be his size, I’d consider myself obese. No wonder he has to carry a gun in his job. He wouldn’t be able to run after the average criminal. Even in my state, I might even be able to outrun him over a hundred metres.
And Now It’s Super Obesity!
The BBC has two health stories today. One is about the fact that the NHS is in crisis and the other about super-obesity.
Are they by any chance related?
I recently had a visit to a hospital, where under pressure of clinic space, we had the consultation in a consulting room fitted out for the super obese.
It was extremely threatening. I was sitting in a chair, where three of me could have sat and the couch was like the bench, you’d get in a garage, where heavy trucks would be serviced.
I was surprised that the BBC didn’t put a warning before the obesity report, like they do for flash photography.
Jenny Hill has just said obesity will cost up £60billion a year in a few years. I hope that figure is wrong, as the total NHS budget for 2011-2012 is £120billion a year.
Who’s Eating All The Pies?
And it would appear everything else!
Accordiung to a report on BBC Breakfast Time, a third of the obese people in the world, live in North America. But only six percent of the world’s population live there!
I think that the answer is a no brainer!
Smoking is so last century: the new stigma is obesity
This is the title of an article in the Evening Standard tonight.
I very much agree, although in many ways they are equally bad.
Pasty Tax
As a coeliac, I can’t eat pasties and most takeaway food, so the pasty-tax was for me creating a level playing field in taxation.
It just shows how the country wants to eat themselves to hell and then travel there in a dump truck.
Haringey to Limit Junk Food
The Sunday Times reports today, that Haringey is to going to limit the number of junk food shops in poor areas of the borough. Here’s a flavour of their report.
Health officials in Haringey, north London, plan to curb the number of fried chicken, burger and pizza outlets in poor parts of the borough where men die, on average, nine years younger than those from its leafier areas. It proposes using planning powers to limit fast-food restaurants after finding there were up to six times more such outlets in poorer districts.
Let’s hope it all works out and spreads to the next borough to the south, Hackney. The Kingsland Road has little else, except loan and pound -shops.
A Fat Tax
Dr. Mike Rayner of Oxford University is proposing a fat tax. BBC Breakfast had that obese size awareness campaigner to put the other side.
Surely, they could find someone more attractive for this time in the morning, or are they all like that in the North.
I have been for a fat tax for years, and we should follow Denmark and France.
On the other hand, we could have a tax-back scheme, where if you have a yearly check-up by your doctor and he thinks you’re saving the NHS money, you get an extra tax allowance.
I notice by the way, that the obese lady was called Fatima. How appropriate! Could that be the cause of herr problems, as she was teased badly by her classmates at schoo.
Obesity
They’ve just given a forum on BBC Breakfast for a very large lady, who calls herself a Size Awareness Campaigner. She objects to being called obese and wants doctors to use other words.
I would just use fat!
After all because of their overeating, they are pushing the NHS down the toilet.
Why should I pay my taxes to fund other clear up the mess causes by the bad habits of others. And of course that includes smoking and excessive drinking!
That item would never have been shown, whilst the program was based in London.
The Solution to Smoking and Obesity
Why not allow towns to have referenda about whether they want to allow smoking and lots of unhealthy food shops?
It would be interesting to see what happened in the towns that voted to allow it after a few years.
Hopefully, they would see sense.
My old GP once exchanged with a doctor in Canada for a year, where there were lots of Native American patients, most of whom were heavy smokers. His statistics and stories about that time, would fill a large book. But sadly he’s dead now.
He was one of the better GPs, I’ve had in my life.
The Anonymous Widower 