Downsize Us!

A “fat tax” on junk food could be the cure to obesity among Canadians, like the tax on cigarettes, according to the head of the Canadian Medical association.

What’s next, weigh scales at your local burger joint. “Sorry sir you’re tipping the scales a tad much today…..”

Have we lost our collective minds?

How is taxing junk food going to curb obesity?

Take me for instance: I’m guilty of eating too much fast food. Sometimes 2 or 3 times a week. Strangely, I don’t worry too much about getting fat. I do worry about some of the other health ramifications attached to my sometimes unhealthy diet.

The point: I find it hard to consume enough calories eating only junk food to gain weight.

Simple equation: calories in greater than calories out = fat.

What happened to educating people on eating a healthy balanced diet and getting some exercise?

I know: LIFE.

Life can be a struggle and eating healthy can be expensive.

We’re told the healthiest diet consists of organic fruits, vegetables and meats.

The big question is who can afford this diet?

Can you?

With gas, housing, schooling, entertainment and the cost of life in general on the verge of sky-rocketing, something has to give. We have to cut corners. Those corners quite are often in our diets.

I don’t know if you noticed: people are stressed to the max. Today’s wallets are thinner.

“The difference between a poor Canadian and a non-poor Canadian is about 2 pay cheques.”

-Spotlight on poverty.

Who would this tax affect the most?

The poor and the lower middle class. People whose life’s struggles have gotten the best of them or those fighting to survive and move up social ladders.

Radical suggestion:

The price of food should be in direct correlation to the number of calories.

Sounds crazy?

If this was the formula, only the rich would be fat.

Imagine: water = 0 calories, therefore, $0. Burger with cheese meal: 1100 calories, for example sake, lets say restaurants are allowed to charge 2 Ë per calorie. That would make this meal: $22.00. A salad on the other hand would be in the neighborhood of $2.

Obesity amongst the poor would quickly be alleviated. They would be more prone to eat vegetables and drink water instead of scraping together whatever they can and heading to the local fast-food joint for their sodium enriched fixes.

“Damn you for putting sugar in your tasty fries.”

Do you still think I am crazy?

One last thought: I work daily with some of the poorer members of society – Guess what? Most of them smoke.

Makes you think: who’ll get fat with this tax.

Lindsay Wincherauk is a Vancouver based author. See his website at http://www.seedenterprises.com

Check out his critically acclaimed book Seed’s Sketchy Relationship Theories – A Guide to the Perils of Dating (How not to become a bar regular). Fire a question his way in his online form Ask Seed.

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