I don't agree with Bloomberg, but there just shouldn't be food made with more than 1,000 calories

[Anonymous]

There is no harm with posting calories on everything. I think the morbidly obese should be taxed... I think Alabama was considering doing a trial on this at one point. Don't know if that ever happened.

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

[Anonymous]

9:29, how dare you cloud this discussion with facts!

[Anonymous]

Bloomberg is not going to make a single person skinnier, or healthier.

Plus New Yorkers are thinner than the average bear anyway. The fat people are tourists. Cutting them off from their mega sized sodas for the week they are visiting is not going to cause them to make a lifestyle change or impact their overall health in any possible way.

It is like the stupid San Francisco ordinance banning toys in happy meals. It won't deter a single person who likes to eat at McDonalds.

[Anonymous]

It really makes sense if you travel, if you get a coke outside the US it's maybe 8 oz, here the "small" is normally 12 oz and don't even get me started on the "large" 16 oz.

And when we go out to eat, it stuns me the plate sizes. When we lived overseas, we would order a meal each. Now, my daughter and I usually split a plate and my husband will order one - and we will have leftovers. My daughters "kids meal" is usually the size of an adult meal in Europe.

Most meals come with fries or something fried and ALL kids meals are chicken fingers or mac N cheese.

We live in the city, so we make her walk everywhere, but I see 4 and 5 year old kids in strollers (more kids then just ones with special needs, the norm not the exception)

We had a daycare party the other week and one of the dads gave his 2 year old a "cokey coke" because he had been such a good boy. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

Agree completely. Make the crap food more expensive to consume.

How did we make it happen for cigarettes? Can't we do the same for soda?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no harm with posting calories on everything. I think the morbidly obese should be taxed... I think Alabama was considering doing a trial on this at one point. Don't know if that ever happened.

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

I'm ok with this. We have McDonalds once in a blue moon (bad food as a rare treat). And I think we should pay more for it. If you make healthy organic food cheaper and McDonalds more expensive it would change the way people buy it. Lets tax it -

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

Agree completely. Make the crap food more expensive to consume.

How did we make it happen for cigarettes? Can't we do the same for soda?

Seriously, this is what the "green" lobby should be doing! Tax soda!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

Agree completely. Make the crap food more expensive to consume.

How did we make it happen for cigarettes? Can't we do the same for soda?

Because cigarettes directly and negatively impact the health of others not participating in the act of smoking through secondhanded smoke. Other's health is at risk whether they are smoking or not.

Soda only impacts the health of the person consuming the beverage. You are not going to get diabetes or obese by sitting next to or in the same room with a soda drinker.

Common sense, people.

It is fun to make rules and bans against things other people do that annoy you, but eventually someone is going to start banning things that you enjoy too. It is a slippery slope, so be careful about jumping on this bandwagon. Read some history and see where controlling everything to manipulate individual behavior eventually gets you. Not a good place to end up.

[Anonymous]

Okay, forget about Bloomberg.

How, if at all, would you use public policy to try to stem the obesity epidemic in the United States? If you think we should do nothing, what would you propose to do to handle the health care costs for the obese, which are SIX TIMES the health care costs of the non-obese? Given that the obese are predominantly low income, is it even possible to think that they should pay for their higher health costs? Should parents be allowed to let their children become obese?

In short, what solutions would you have, or why would you propose nothing (public policy wise) should be done?



http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/04/30/obesity-now-costs-americans-more-in-healthcare-costs-than-smoking/

[Anonymous]

We live in the city, so we make her walk everywhere, but I see 4 and 5 year old kids in strollers (more kids then just ones with special needs, the norm not the exception)

We had a daycare party the other week and one of the dads gave his 2 year old a "cokey coke" because he had been such a good boy. Gross.

I think you see the older kids in strollers because it's easier for the parents. We stopped using the stroller at age 2, but there were definitely times it would have been easier to just strap DD in and go! You get places quicker when DC is in a stroller and it is easier to manage DC.

Coke for a 2 year old is disgusting. Why in the world does a 2 yo need soda??

[Anonymous]

Eating out anywhere contains a lot of calories and salt. I don't think posting calories is a bad thing. And I do think its ridiculous for one meal to contain 1000 calories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

Agree completely. Make the crap food more expensive to consume.

How did we make it happen for cigarettes? Can't we do the same for soda?

Because cigarettes directly and negatively impact the health of others not participating in the act of smoking through secondhanded smoke. Other's health is at risk whether they are smoking or not.

Soda only impacts the health of the person consuming the beverage. You are not going to get diabetes or obese by sitting next to or in the same room with a soda drinker.

Common sense, people.

It is fun to make rules and bans against things other people do that annoy you, but eventually someone is going to start banning things that you enjoy too. It is a slippery slope, so be careful about jumping on this bandwagon. Read some history and see where controlling everything to manipulate individual behavior eventually gets you. Not a good place to end up.

this is not a comparative example. we PAY for smoker's health problems (well, everyone's but we know they have more of them). Banning smoking in restaurants, buildings, etc., is what keeps second-hand smoke away, NOT taxes. Taxes makes the consumer think twice about buying,period.

[Anonymous]

And that's the point, isn't it? It's the healthy paying more insurance premiums to help subsidize those who are unhealthy? And the unhealthy wanting more of their treatments, and a larger percentage of each treatment, covered by insurance. There is no argument that obese people have more health issues (as a group) than non-obese people. With the exception of very few true glandular problems, obesity is completely preventable and is learned. Do you have a right to be obese if you want to be? Yes, but not if it means that you charge me for your privilege of making that choice. Right now, you are. My health care costs are soaring. My Medicare costs are so bad that there may not be enough left by the time I need it or by the time my kids do. The hospitals are charging for idiotic things in order to make up for shortfalls in insurance. We have a crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Because cigarettes directly and negatively impact the health of others not participating in the act of smoking through secondhanded smoke. Other's health is at risk whether they are smoking or not.
Soda only impacts the health of the person consuming the beverage. You are not going to get diabetes or obese by sitting next to or in the same room with a soda drinker.
Common sense, people.
It is fun to make rules and bans against things other people do that annoy you, but eventually someone is going to start banning things that you enjoy too. It is a slippery slope, so be careful about jumping on this bandwagon. Read some history and see where controlling everything to manipulate individual behavior eventually gets you. Not a good place to end up.

Common sense tells me that Doritos should not be cheaper than apples. They are cheaper because we subsidize corn production (among other reasons).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, what they should do like for cigarettes...heavily tax unhealthy food. Its currently subsidized. There is no reason soda should cost less than milk or Doritos cost less than apples.

Agree completely. Make the crap food more expensive to consume.

How did we make it happen for cigarettes? Can't we do the same for soda?

Because cigarettes directly and negatively impact the health of others not participating in the act of smoking through secondhanded smoke. Other's health is at risk whether they are smoking or not.

Soda only impacts the health of the person consuming the beverage. You are not going to get diabetes or obese by sitting next to or in the same room with a soda drinker.

Common sense, people.

It is fun to make rules and bans against things other people do that annoy you, but eventually someone is going to start banning things that you enjoy too. It is a slippery slope, so be careful about jumping on this bandwagon. Read some history and see where controlling everything to manipulate individual behavior eventually gets you. Not a good place to end up.

Are you really this stupid? You don't tax unhealthy behaviors for "fun," you do it to discourage people from engaging in those unhealthy behaviors. Unhealthy behaviors like excessive soda consumption don't directly kill others the way secondhand smoke does, but it affects us all due to the marginal cost of excessive sugar consumption -- soda is cheap, but the healthcare costs of treating diabetes, obesity, and other related issues are steep and impact us all. A tax addresses that not only by discouraging excessive consumption, but also by raising revenue that can then be applied to addressing the marginal costs.

If there isn't a tax applied to this sort of behavior, it essentially creates a tax on those who don't engage in the behavior, due to the marginal costs. That's wildly unfair.

Yes, you can't tax every negative behavior, but seriously? Sugar is subsidized in this country. That's all kinds of f*cked up.