A Tax On Fat People

In the first 15 minutes of our visit to this year's Iowa State Fair, my wife made an all-too-true observation: Out of the thousands of people there, 9 out of 10 were overweight, and plenty of them would fit the description of obese. It's a very bad thing.

Forget about the obvious physical issues for these folks. Their lack of self/health discipline also burdens others via their lower production and higher health care costs. They are not going to reach their potential as individuals, and we are not going to reach our potential as a country, by being fat. Put into that perspective, it sort of ticks me off.

So how do we get very overwieght people to care more? How do we motivate them to lose weight? I've always advocated a tax on higher fat foods and ingredients. We all know money motivates people. We tax tobacco (as we should), surely we can do it for food.

I suppose that may be treating the symptom and not the disease. In the end, the answer lies in why fat people don't care about how they feel or look. When someone figures that out, please call me. I'll be somewhere exercising.