{"id":3136,"date":"2010-06-23T14:48:38","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T21:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hundredtenpounds.wordpress.com\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2010-08-11T16:27:30","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T23:27:30","slug":"fat-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=3136","title":{"rendered":"Fat Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s finally summer in Portland!! It’s currently 76 degrees and sunny. It’s so warm out today that when I walked across the Hawthorne Bridge to work this morning I didn’t need my jacket at all. Yay for summer!<\/p>\n

During my lunch break I went for a walk up to PGE Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I walked fairly slowly to make sure my hip didn’t start to hurt. And actually, moving felt really great. I no longer felt stiff or tight. When I got back from my 40 or so minute walk, I ate my leftovers for lunch: quinoa and half the salmon from last night’s dinner. Delicious!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lunch:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fat Tax<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I just read a fantastic article on Heavy Incentives to Lose Weight<\/a>. Check out this staggering fact: “Now the famous 7-Eleven Double Big Gulp equals 64 ounces of soda and 600 calories<\/strong>. A regular fast-food burger that used to be 2.8 ounces and 202 calories by 2004 was 4.3 ounces and had 310 calories.” 600 calories for a soda?! That’s almost half of my daily caloric intake!<\/p>\n

The article is about Tufts having financial incentives to lose weight. “The 12-week competition, through June 17, offers $500 to the employee who loses the most weight, $1,000 to the biggest team loser; $300 to the second-place winner, $600 for the second-place team; $200 for third-place employee and $400 for the team.”<\/p>\n

Would you participate in something like this? Would it motivate you to lose weight? And most importantly, why would money be your <\/strong>incentive to lose weight and get healthy?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And on the flip side– should people be TAXED or penalized for gaining weight? There are new rumors about “fat taxes” on things like candy and soda, fast food, etc. It’s also called the “Twinkie Tax” or the “Sin Tax.”<\/p>\n

Someone I used to know, who was a Canadian, used to complain all the time about how the “fat people” of Canada were sucking up all the resources and that they should be taxed for being fat. I kept my mouth shut because I could see both sides of the argument and I also didn’t want to engage in a debate with him. I’m not Canadian and don’t participate in Socialized Medicine so I don’t feel like I could weigh-in (so to speak) on the subject. But how would you feel if your medical costs and co-pays were more expensive because \u00a0you were obese? Or more expensive because you had to pay for OTHER people’s obesity?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another article claims the cost of Obesity is growing: \u00a0“A recent article in Health Affairs estimated its annual cost to be $147 billion and growing. That translates into $1,250 per household, mostly in taxes and insurance premiums.” Ouch! That’s expensive. Is it fair for healthy households to be charged more in insurance premiums to make up for obese households that are over-using the resources?<\/p>\n

How do we solve this health epidemic WITHOUT discriminating <\/strong>against fat people? As a former fatty, I remember the harsh reality of discrimination. People judged me by my weight and not my abilities or personality. \u00a0Finally, where do we draw the line with allowing the government to tell us what we can and can’t eat?<\/p>\n

Question: How many of my readers have a gym membership they pay but don’t use on a frequent basis? If paying money to “become thin” (ie gym memberships) doesn’t motivate us, how would being paid to lose weight be any different?<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Where do you weigh-in on this subject?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s finally summer in Portland!! It’s currently 76 degrees and sunny. It’s so warm out today that when I walked across the Hawthorne Bridge to work this morning I didn’t need my jacket at all. Yay for summer! During my lunch break I went for a walk up to PGE Park. I walked fairly slowly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104,152,154,159,195],"tags":[565,568,8662,8667,839,1022,1068,1151,1160],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4795,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions\/4795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}