War on obesity has fat chance of success
By Charles Adler, QMI Agency
"This week, the Ontario Medical Association declared a “war on obesity.” And who are the enemies in this war? Well, the people of Ontario, and their freedom to decide what they eat.
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That’s the basic problem with having government-owned health care. Since we all pay into the system, we all pay for the bad choices of others. That’s the problem with socialism. The government takes care of our health and our wellness, they own a piece of us and can make these kinds of authoritarian decisions. Decisions about what we can and cannot do with our own bodies.
On a practical level, this initiative falls flat. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation points out that there were no peer-review papers and no real-world examples where food taxes have changed behaviour. In fact, they point to a D.C. think-tank which found that a 20-cent tax on a 75-cent soft drink resulted in the Body Mass Index of an obese person decline from 40 to 39.98.
Denmark tried a “junk food tax” in 2001. The result? Disastrous economic consequences."
On a practical level, this initiative falls flat. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation points out that there were no peer-review papers and no real-world examples where food taxes have changed behaviour. In fact, they point to a D.C. think-tank which found that a 20-cent tax on a 75-cent soft drink resulted in the Body Mass Index of an obese person decline from 40 to 39.98.
Denmark tried a “junk food tax” in 2001. The result? Disastrous economic consequences."
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