Hong Kong’s success may slash the rate of obesity too....
Today's Post: Friday, 3-26-2010
Today, AP online health news had this story.:
“Could Hong Kong teach China to quit smoking?”
AP Friday, March 26, 2010. By AP Medical Writer Margie Mason”
It begins with these two paragraphs.:
“Nearly one in three smokers worldwide lights up in China, where cigarettes — commonly given as gifts — are so tightly woven into the culture, some believe it's an impossible habit to kick. But a new report suggests the keys to quitting lie in the country's own backyard.
Hong Kong has successfully fought tobacco for two decades and seen its smoking rate drop from 23 percent in 1982 when the campaign began to 12 percent in 2008 — the lowest in the world. The former British colony, now under Chinese rule, hit cigarettes hard with taxes up to 300 percent, banned indoor smoking and promoted education through schools and public service announcements — proving that smoking and Chinese culture aren't necessarily married for life.”
This article also points out that the number of smokers in China equals the entire population of the United States. So, since China’s total population is about three times that size, that means that in mainland China, about one third, or 33%, of the people smoke.
In Hong Kong, it’s 12%!
How did Hong Kong in the same culture and now part of the same country get from 33% to 12%?
It’s in the article. Hong Kong, “The former British colony, …. hit cigarettes hard with taxes up to 300 percent, banned indoor smoking and promoted education through schools and public service announcements”
Even better, if their cigarette taxes went up a more, perhaps, 40 to 50 % more, and the new taxes went to fund more advertising and education of how horribly bad smoking really is on the smoker and the people around him or her, maybe they could get their rate down to 6% from 12%.
With the foods and drinks that cause obesity, I believe, treating them similarly with informing everyone on their harmful effects when consumed more than a few times a month -- and heavy taxes on them would be the most effective single way to combat obesity.
This would also prevent the other diseases the heavy consumption we have of this stuff now causes.
Now, 64 ounce plastic bottles of soft drinks can cost as low as 99 cents or $1.29. With a tax of 10 cents an ounce on the soft drink and a tax that works out to about 5 cents an ounce on the sweetener, the price would be $10.59 to $10.89 per bottle. Since 12 and16 ounce sizes would sell so much better, the 16 ounce size might disappear from the market. 12 ounce bottles would be something like $2.19 to $2.29 and 16 ounces ones would be $2.99 to $3.29.
Uneducated and uninformed people who buy the 64 ounce bottle and drink one a day – and who are 60 pounds fatter because of it, might well drink one 12 ounce soft drink instead -- and lose 48 pounds of fat!
Similarly, if refined grain foods, sugar of all kinds, salt, and addictive flavorings such as MSG were taxed comparably hard, consumption of packaged desserts, packaged pre-cooked baked goods, and packaged snacks would fall as much.
Foods like hamburgers and sandwiches that now are almost all made with refined grain flour would be almost all made with 100 % whole grain flour.
It would also make sense to tax white rice and potatoes as highly.
Restaurants would then serve more vegetables and far less potatoes and rice with the dinners they sell.
French Fries would still sell. But with small servings selling for more than jumbo servings do now, fewer people will eat them while those that do will mostly stop pigging out on them.
Then if every child in elementary, middle school, and high school learns why these foods are taxed and the consequences of ingesting lots of these foods every day instead of small amounts occasionally,
fewer and fewer people will continue to think that these foods are safe to eat in large amounts every day or that it is normal and completely OK to do so.
Yes indeed, applying the Hong Kong cigarette reduction method to fattening foods and drinks will end obesity as a massive and widespread problem.
It’s about a third of the adult population now. The Hong Kong example suggests it could be 12 % or less in 10 years if we instituted all this now.
Since something like 60 % of all medical costs go to fight diseases caused by ingesting this stuff and isn’t even that effective in its results, medical care costs will drop by at least 20 or 30% instead of going up by that much.
The people in the United States would be far healthier.
And, our economy would be so much better the average income would go up while the unemployment rate would go down.
Plus, that’s in addition to the revenue from the taxes going to the governments involved.
As I’ve pointed out before, such taxes are one of the very few ways governments can get funding while IMPROVING the economy.
Today's Post: Friday, 3-26-2010
Today, AP online health news had this story.:
“Could Hong Kong teach China to quit smoking?”
AP Friday, March 26, 2010. By AP Medical Writer Margie Mason”
It begins with these two paragraphs.:
“Nearly one in three smokers worldwide lights up in China, where cigarettes — commonly given as gifts — are so tightly woven into the culture, some believe it's an impossible habit to kick. But a new report suggests the keys to quitting lie in the country's own backyard.
Hong Kong has successfully fought tobacco for two decades and seen its smoking rate drop from 23 percent in 1982 when the campaign began to 12 percent in 2008 — the lowest in the world. The former British colony, now under Chinese rule, hit cigarettes hard with taxes up to 300 percent, banned indoor smoking and promoted education through schools and public service announcements — proving that smoking and Chinese culture aren't necessarily married for life.”
This article also points out that the number of smokers in China equals the entire population of the United States. So, since China’s total population is about three times that size, that means that in mainland China, about one third, or 33%, of the people smoke.
In Hong Kong, it’s 12%!
How did Hong Kong in the same culture and now part of the same country get from 33% to 12%?
It’s in the article. Hong Kong, “The former British colony, …. hit cigarettes hard with taxes up to 300 percent, banned indoor smoking and promoted education through schools and public service announcements”
Even better, if their cigarette taxes went up a more, perhaps, 40 to 50 % more, and the new taxes went to fund more advertising and education of how horribly bad smoking really is on the smoker and the people around him or her, maybe they could get their rate down to 6% from 12%.
With the foods and drinks that cause obesity, I believe, treating them similarly with informing everyone on their harmful effects when consumed more than a few times a month -- and heavy taxes on them would be the most effective single way to combat obesity.
This would also prevent the other diseases the heavy consumption we have of this stuff now causes.
Now, 64 ounce plastic bottles of soft drinks can cost as low as 99 cents or $1.29. With a tax of 10 cents an ounce on the soft drink and a tax that works out to about 5 cents an ounce on the sweetener, the price would be $10.59 to $10.89 per bottle. Since 12 and16 ounce sizes would sell so much better, the 16 ounce size might disappear from the market. 12 ounce bottles would be something like $2.19 to $2.29 and 16 ounces ones would be $2.99 to $3.29.
Uneducated and uninformed people who buy the 64 ounce bottle and drink one a day – and who are 60 pounds fatter because of it, might well drink one 12 ounce soft drink instead -- and lose 48 pounds of fat!
Similarly, if refined grain foods, sugar of all kinds, salt, and addictive flavorings such as MSG were taxed comparably hard, consumption of packaged desserts, packaged pre-cooked baked goods, and packaged snacks would fall as much.
Foods like hamburgers and sandwiches that now are almost all made with refined grain flour would be almost all made with 100 % whole grain flour.
It would also make sense to tax white rice and potatoes as highly.
Restaurants would then serve more vegetables and far less potatoes and rice with the dinners they sell.
French Fries would still sell. But with small servings selling for more than jumbo servings do now, fewer people will eat them while those that do will mostly stop pigging out on them.
Then if every child in elementary, middle school, and high school learns why these foods are taxed and the consequences of ingesting lots of these foods every day instead of small amounts occasionally,
fewer and fewer people will continue to think that these foods are safe to eat in large amounts every day or that it is normal and completely OK to do so.
Yes indeed, applying the Hong Kong cigarette reduction method to fattening foods and drinks will end obesity as a massive and widespread problem.
It’s about a third of the adult population now. The Hong Kong example suggests it could be 12 % or less in 10 years if we instituted all this now.
Since something like 60 % of all medical costs go to fight diseases caused by ingesting this stuff and isn’t even that effective in its results, medical care costs will drop by at least 20 or 30% instead of going up by that much.
The people in the United States would be far healthier.
And, our economy would be so much better the average income would go up while the unemployment rate would go down.
Plus, that’s in addition to the revenue from the taxes going to the governments involved.
As I’ve pointed out before, such taxes are one of the very few ways governments can get funding while IMPROVING the economy.
Labels: how to LOWER our health care costs, how to solve the obesity crisis, why we should tax fattening foods and drinks
posted by David at 2:44 PM
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