All the so called experts are biased. Self serving dog in the race thinking of a child. Without fail this leads to higher costs. Its just a complete waste of time finding a cure for a symptom.

Tax and limit soda? No. Set tax rates based on body fat? Yes. Solves problem.

A slippery slope. KD took it upon himself to make himself better through diet and excercise. How many folks have absolutely ZERO excersize in there daily routine? I would say about 50%. I have studied various forms of Martial Arts after 20 years of lifting weights in a gym and at home. As I have aged it came to me that I could not continue on this path and found Martial Arts to be the answer. It is as high impact as you want it to be, literally. I recommend others do the same. Bottom line? You are responsible to yourself to get off your ass and act. Having your clothes fit like **** and having low energy levels is not a life prolonging path. Just as KD, make the decision and do it! Regulate your own damn soda intake and let the nanny state dry up from no one to regulate.

I'm in Bertdilbert's camp. For every 10 pounds of excess weight slap a surtax on the perpetrator. And if he or she happens to be on welfare take deduct it from their transfer payment. The fact of the matter is that fat people are another protected class in America. The government talks tough about the 'war on obesity' but what disincentive does it levy to reduce the problem? Obesity should get taxed. Hell's bells. If they are going to launch an all-out war on the smoker by charging $11 for a pack of Camels in NYC go after fatty too!!!

Karl wrote..

The fact that today, if you decide to be a fat-ass, you can then demand that nanny government pay for your medical expenses and we have done exactly that, from old to young, and the price is expanding at roughly 9% a year from 1980 to now.

I think the vast majority of people don't 'decide' to be a fat-ass. They are not even smart enough to understand the connection between what they shove in their pie hole to what will happen to them 30 years later. They can't even connect today's actions to next week's reality.

But I agree the reason the nanny state is doing this is that 'they' are currently paying for the consequences and it will cut into their pensions.

Quote:

everyone who is fat chooses to be fat, because we're all personally responsible for every calorie that goes down our pie hole

I beg to differ. Most people do NOT choose to be fat. In particular children. In particular toddlers.

Quote:

Quote:

The problem is too many calories going in and not enough going out. Those  calories come from everywhere, not just soft drinks. Soft drinks are simply the  easiest target to demagogue.

Well, no.  But they're one of the easy targets.

Well, no. Not all calories are the same. Growing fat has less to do with how much goes down your pie hole than about what goes down through it, and sweet water is amongst the vilest things (sitting on the very same march as alcohol) that you can eat or drink.



http://www.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_u....

Few are shocked that alcohol and tobacco are at least somewhat regulated. Sugar should get the very same treatment.

I'm in none of the camps. I bet they don't limit 40 OZ beer. I have thought often how large Cokes have become over the years. I had a job in Jack in the Box 40 years ago and the large was 20 OZ. They still made real drinks too, instead of the crap they make now.

What is funny is the limit is 16 OZ. It won't stop people from buying 2 of them or 3 of them. As long as the government volunteers to pass out health care, they should keep their hands to themselves. The same goes for smoking and all the other crap. Remember, dead people don't get their social security and people that fall over dead don't need much hospitalization.

I bet NYC is still putting flouride in their water. I am going to note that people getting fat started in the 1960's and flouride destroys your thyroid over time. It also causes your teeth to fall apart from the inside, been traced to bone diseases and may other physical and mental problems. Yet the vast majority of governments continue to pour this poison in our water. Read the warnings on a tube of tooth paste. A litre of city water has a dose of the substance they recommend you don't swallow. Why do we allow the ADA to dictate we drink stuff that may be causing our teeth to fall apart? Bridge work, crowns and the associated mess is where the big money in dentistry is. Go to Mexico and see what a dentist costs. Good ones are about a dime on the dollar compared to those here. One more racket run on the US people.

This is something these governments have control of. There isn't any state based dental care. Try to get help for your teeth. It is damn hard. I had a root canal and crown last year. $3000. That is 10 weeks pay for a person working at minimum wage. Took all of 3 hours.

I am 50, going on 51 years. To this day I wear tight fitting sports shirts and tight jeans, because i can get away with it. I exercise every day, avoid soda, drink water and milk, and eat right. Shoot, Memorial Day weekend I moved over 10 tons of dirt from my front yard to my back, and am still here to talk about it. ;-)

Remodeling the back yard due to Mother Nature, don'tya know!

Kudos to Karl for getting it right.

Quote:

I beg to differ. Most people do NOT choose to be fat. In particular children. In particular toddlers.

Er... once you turn 18, you can give mom and dad the finger and head out the door and feed yourself.

If you're fat and 18 or older, it is your own damn fault.

The majority of the population within the United States is not younger than 18. Most people choose to be fat through their dietary decisions. A very small minority have medical / genetic issues that result in obesity BUT the vast majority become and stay fatasses one meal at a time.

People wanted the sin taxes. Tobacco. Alcohol. Now Sugar.

Next up, no burgers over 1/3 pound. With cheese, another $1 tax. Add bacon, another $2 tax.

Why didn't anyone see this coming? I could, 20 years ago. I wrote a paper about this in my economics class in 1984.

Most lardasses just want a pill when they first encounter health issues. Not a nannycrat hardass.

Most politicians salivate over the prospect to raise money through another tobacco-like litigation settlement. Only this time the stakes are trillions, not billions.

Even in "socialist" countries:
Too fat for surgery: Patients refused treatment unless they change their lifestyles
NHS refuses 'undeserving' patients vital treatment in move branded 'discriminatory'
Hip and knee replacements and even IVF among treatments being 'rationed'
Health Service trusts insist restrictions are in people's 'best interests'
By SOPHIE BORLAND
UPDATED: 13:27, 9 March 2012
CREATED: 17:50, 6 March 2012
Comments (535)
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The NHS has been accused of rationing vital treatments after refusing to help ‘undeserving’ patients unless they lose weight or quit smoking.
It is denying patients hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery or even IVF unless they agree to make radical changes to their lifestyle.
An investigation has revealed that one in four health trusts in England bars certain operations or procedures for smokers or those deemed too fat.


Demands: Patients deemed to be 'undeserving', such as some who are overweight or those who smoke, are being denied NHS treatments unless they change their lifestyles
They include NHS Hertfordshire, which has banned certain patients from any operation requiring a general anaesthetic other than lifesaving surgery on their hearts, brains or to remove cancer.
Instead they are being sent on weight management courses or to ‘stop smoking’ clinics and told to come back only when they lead healthier lives.
MPs and senior doctors last night accused the NHS of ‘withholding treatment’ from anyone whose lifestyle it disapproves of.
However, managers at Health Service trusts insisted that such restrictions are in people’s ‘best interests’.

Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said peoples' diets and whether they chose to smoke are all 'lifestyle choices'
Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: ‘It’s becoming the deserving and the undeserving. I think it’s discriminatory and I find it astonishing. The Government should determine what should be applied universally.’
Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said: ‘What people eat, drink or whether they smoke is a lifestyle choice.
‘It’s wrong if it is being management-led. What we can’t have is the state withdrawing treatment because it disapproves of the ways people live.
'They are still tax-paying citizens and they deserve services.
‘My view is that if this is done for clinical reasons then it should be a decision taken by doctors.’
Freedom of Information requests obtained by Pulse, a magazine for GPs, from 91 trusts in England show that 25 have imposed some form of restriction since last April.
In NHS Bedfordshire, anyone with a body mass index above 35 – deemed to be severely obese – is barred from having hip or knee surgery.
This is equivalent to a 5ft 5in woman weighing 15 stone or a 6ft man weighing 18 and a half stone.
Before they are allowed surgery they must lose 10 per cent of their body weight or reduce their BMI to below 35.
NHS North Essex requires patients to lose 5 per cent of their body weight and ensure they keep it off for at least six months.

Vital: Hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and even IVF are among the key NHS procedures being withheld from patients who are deemed as 'undeserving'
A total of 11 NHS trusts barred smokers and the obese from hip and knee replacements, while nine denied them IVF.
This includes the Peninsula Health Technology Commissioning Group, covering Cornwall, Devon, Torbay and Plymouth, which bars both men and women from undergoing IVF treatment unless they have been non-smokers for at least six months.
Ben Troke, partner at Browne Jacobson LLP solicitors, warned that the measures could be regarded as discriminating against certain groups in society.

Dr Clare Gerada argued that the NHS move was 'discriminatory'
But those doctors and managers who have drawn up the restrictions insist they are medically justified.
Smokers and the obese are more likely to develop breathing difficulties or suffer heart or kidney problems while under general anaesthetic.
Hip and knee replacements also tend to be less successful in the obese while there is evidence they benefit less from IVF.
However, there are concerns that many trusts are imposing the restrictions only to save money.
Although the NHS’s budget has not been cut, it has been ordered to spend its money more efficiently to save £20billion over the next three years. This will then be ploughed back into care.
Faced with such strict targets, many health trusts have resorted to restricting certain treatments and services.
Dr Nicolas Small, Chair of Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group, said: ‘The measures we have introduced in Hertfordshire are for people who need routine surgery only.
‘They do not apply when people need urgent or emergency surgery such as to treat cancer.
'There will also be times when it will be appropriate to offer surgery to a patient without following these measures.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl....

When I had my hip screwed back together last Aug I was talking w/ the the folks in pre-op. They were saying it would be a pleasure to operate on me because everyone else they "worked with" was 300 lb's overweight (I'm 170'ish). Just an anecdote.

First I want to make it clear that I despise social medicine, or socialized anything for that matter. We should be personally responsible for the decisions we make.

With that said some things are so evil that I think they should be banned or at least highly regulated. Should we ever let something like dioxin back into the wild? I think everyone would universally say no. The primary ingredient in most sodas is NOT sugar, it is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is the number cause of type II diabetes and I think it is evil. Problem is that much of the damage it does can manifest itself well before children can reasonably be expected to make thoughtful decisions for themselves. I absolutely do not want or like a ban on soda (even though I avoid it myself), but I fully support a ban on HFCS - and not just its use in soda

There will be idealists who think the government should have no involvement in regulation of any sort. How's that working for us financially? There is so much fraud, obfuscation, and burying of facts that it is not possible for even thoughtful, knowledgeable people to make an accurate assessment. All the same tools & tricks are hard at work in the food/ag segment

"Yeah. So why is the government paying for the treatment when people choose to be fat? And let's face it -- everyone who is fat chooses to be fat, because we're all personally responsible for every calorie that goes down our pie hole."

+100. Exactly.

We went up to Chicago yesterday to a funeral, and right outside of Chicago I saw a big billboard for a bariatric clinic with the huge headline "Obesity is a disease, not a choice" in order to make you feel better about your lifestyle decisions and get you into their clinic.

BULL****!

I drink no soda at all. Yet I am fat. How inconvenient.

"Obesity is a disease, not a choice"

Eh, thats almost true given whats put in food these days, fed gov subsidies and all the gov. propaganda to eat more carbs than fats.

It has been amusing to watch the trans fats haters try to spin their pro trans fats stances from 20+ years ago.

Better to have fat docile folks then stone soup making folks...

Rvacha, it's sad to see you write that post. Is the govt really involved in regulation? It's clear from their actions they're actually part of the fraud. They use our purchasing power to prop up their banks and their spending.

The financial system should be proof that govt intervention is a failure, not a success, and applying the same 'solution' to obesity is unlikely to improve our lot.

On 'the children', since when is it my responsibility to worry about fat kids or the problems that causes them later in life? If you want govt to get involved, don't tax sugar, man up and really flex your muscle. Just take fat kids away from their parents and raise them the govt-approved way.

it's a 200 billion dollar a year industry, Bloomberg was just the opening salvo in a more aggressive approach for capmpaign cash. Get ****ing real, if you really think this is about government concern about your health then a moose needs a hat rack.

The government needs to be forced out of the business of regulation.

Infidel - its a states right issue. A blowjob is illegal in North Carolina but Cigarettes are cheap.

Ddebernardy's video embed appears to be screwed up. I've unscrewed it below. It's a talk by Dr. Lustig of UCSF, who specializes in pediatric obesity and has studied obesity in general immensely. While he gets pretty deep into the biochemical process of sugar metabolism, he doesn't put the layman to sleep. In condemning the government's role in the obesity epidemic, he's nothing if not brutally honest and caring about the truth only; I do believe we have at least one person like him here...

One of Dr. Lustig's points is that if obesity is purely, 100% a choice, then obesity among six-month-olds - especially those in the WIC program - is pretty ****ing difficult to explain. On top of that, no matter one's age, excess sugar consumption can cause a vicious biochemical cycle.

It starts with soda, but opens up the door for "evil foods" taxation.

Next up, a fried chicken tax, a corn syrup tax, a french fry tax.

If people want to place themselves in the care and custody of the state, then they are placing themselves into a dependent status. This is no different than when you live in your parents house, they make the rules.

If people want government health care, then the one footing the bill, government, has every right to limit the food available to the populace. Big Mac's may not be on the government menu. This of course will limit choices in the supermarket down the road to broccoli, skinless chicken, fat free milk, and oatmeal. Foods outside the approved foods can be handled via rationing stamps embedded into your debit card, you will be allotted so many credits per month. Want the "I love it" size at Cold Stone? That will be 5 credits off your allotment.

What happens after government "fixes" the food issue problem? Like any other time government monkeys with the system, something else breaks as a result. The new problem will be healthy people live longer and thus become a burden in the form of old age pension (social security). Once having fixed obesity and other health issues through food intake, government will have to fix the longevity problem.

"The entire reason Bloomberg wants to ban big sodas is that the government is the one being forced to pay for the consequences of you drinking a ****load of them!"

I am not much at mind-reading, but perhaps you are right. I would chalk this up more to the Liberal's tireless quest to improve society. Fortunate indeed that we mindless, ignorant slobs are still somehow smart enough to elect these elite masterminds to govern us.