Does a Flab Tax Make Sense?

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development published a report which raised concerns regarding the rising obesity rates in developing nations that are adopting the western lifestyle.

The report suggests these nations should amp up their efforts in fighting obesity by promoting healthier lifestyles, imposing stringent regulations on food labels, restricting food advertising and levying taxes and subsidies to improve diets.

Methinks what is a good idea for the developing nations is a good idea for the developed nations that have already adopted the western lifestyle that leads. all too often, to obesity.

Some have proposed a Flab Tax.

I have no idea how that would work. Levy a 10% surcharge on Twinkies?

A letter in a recent edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, it being a newspaper in one of the most obese states in one of the developed nations, Texas, brought suggested that flab be taxed....

Flab tax

Seems to me there's a better tax target than cigarettes, one that's quite deadly. The news agency AFP reports that more than half a billion men and women worldwide are clinically obese, according to joint research from Imperial College London, Harvard and the World Health Organization. Texas certainly has its share of the lard. I call on the Legislature to fast-track real "emergency" legislation. Expand "sin" taxes. Tax flab.

-- David House, North Richland Hills, Texas, United States

One area where I can see it might make sense to add a Flab Tax is flying. It does not seem fair, to me, that a person who weighs 600 pounds pays the same price to fly as a person who weighs 100 pounds. It takes a lot more fuel to fly 600 pounds than 100.

Maybe it makes sense to add a Flab Tax in restaurants on some menu items. Like a surcharge on French Fries.

What makes more sense is for people everywhere to learn to eat right and not get fat. Unless one wants to be fat and is happy being flabby. Taxing flab? Just sounds real complicated to me.