About 9 percent of health-care costs are directly attributable to obesity, which led Dubner to wonder if we should assess a fat tax (on fat food, that is, not people) as a way of picking up the tab. One strong objection would be that such a tax would likely be extremely regressive: “[S]ickness, poverty, and obesity are spun together in a dense web of reciprocal causality,” writes Daniel Engber regarding what he calls the “girth-wealth” gradient. To sum it up: the poorer you are, the fatter you’re likely to be; and the fatter you get, the poorer you’re likely to become. So it may be that the obesity fight and income inequality are one and the same. [%comments]
The "Girth-Wealth" Gradient
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For those of us who beleive in low carb diets it’s pretty cut and dry what’s going on. Meat and dairy are very expensive when compared to grain, sugar and other refined carbohydrates. Granted there aren’t any studies on this specifically in the US, but there is data to corroborate it elsewhere. Check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes if you want to see how obesity and starvation can sit side by side by people of equal economic means in Africa. Of course the book also covers all the actual science that’s been done this country on weight loss, and was quite an eye opener for me.
Michael Phelps could afford it. But for the normal population, it’s a retrogressive tax.
But you wouldn’t be able to stuff down enough saturated fat to make you fat. The Army did studies of excess calorie diets in the 60′s and 70′s. Those on the eat 3000 calories of fatty foods/day simply couldn’t do it. They would sit and stare at plates full of steaks and pork cutlets.
Fat satisfies, carbs do not. Fats and carbs together are the worst of all worlds.
The established knowledge is blaming the wrong macronutrient…
Interestingly, as soon as you realize that, the French paradox disappears. They’re thinner and have better heart health because of the saturated fat, not in spite of it.
Where’s the causation?
Much has been made of studies showing how many more fast food places there are in poor neighborhoods than there are produce stores and groceries. Part of the problem just may be that “fat food” is cheaper. A meal from McDonald’s can be much cheaper in time and money than buying the ingrediants and preparing a balanced home-cooked meal.
Go into any fast food restaurant and you’ll be confronted with compelling visual evidence of why poor people are fat.
So if the problem is this tax is regressive, the solution is to use it to tip the scales from fast food being cheaper to produce being cheaper. Why not subsidize retail produce and whole foods in some way with the money generated by the tax? If it’s a zero sum equation, then the only way this is arguably regressive is if poor people continue to prefer obesity-related food. That seems pretty just to me.
An individual from Africa I knew of trying to secure a visa was asked why he wanted to come to the U.S. “I want to live in a country,” he said, “where the poor people are fat.”
The poorer you are, the fatter you are? A great irony in comparison to the bottom third of the world!
“the poorer you are, the fatter you’re likely to be; and the fatter you get, the poorer you’re likely to become.”
Due to the poor not having access,money, knowledge to purchase healthy foods or lacking the time to excersize the weight off?
Other observations often seen: ultra expensive SUV being driven by a skinny woman with no passengers then cheap economy car being driven by an obese woman with multiple passengers.
Birds of a feather flock together? What ultra wealthy man would take an obese woman as a “trophy” wife when he is all about looks and high end items?
It would be a real tragedy if we found that junk food is a Griffin good….