Taxes on Bad for you foods – possibly soon....

Today's Post: Monday, 12-21-2009

Eating too much bad for you foods and most drinking of any soft drinks will make you fat and sick & particularly likely to get type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, & every kind of heart disease from heart attacks & heart failure to strokes, peripheral artery disease (PAD), erectile dysfunction,& vascular dementia; and Alzheimer’s disease.

Most people who ingest this stuff don’t have a clue how bad this stuff is for them if they ingest it every day -- or worse, ingest almost nothing else -- & keep doing it for years!

Even some people who have at least heard it might be bad for them, pay no attention. They grew up with it; they see people on TV advertising for it; the stuff usually does taste good; their friends or people they work with eat or drink it; &, if they are still young or quite active, it may not have seemed to harm them yet. And, they believe if it really was that bad for them it would at least be illegal. Oops!

Unfortunately, this can be challenging to change since the companies who provide it make good money; and many of them are quite large. And, virtually everyone who watches broadcast TV is inundated with ads for this stuff, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You could outlaw all of the bad for you ingredients right away. But that is totally undoable. Except for the very worst stuff (trans fats so far), since most people don’t really know or believe it’s that bad for them, there is insufficient political support. And, even if the large companies it would put out of business didn’t lobby against it with great vigor -- & they do, it would put lots of mostly innocent and undeserving people out of work. (Most of them don’t really know the product they help make or sell is that bad for people either.)

However, we must reduce the consumption of this stuff or our economy will go bankrupt from people too sick to work or be very productive combined with horribly high medical costs.

This has already happened to such an extent, the recovery from the recession is slowed by the hit increasing medical costs have given the discretionary spending of the people who still have jobs!

The good news is that there is a proven fix to all this.

We already know from increases on taxes on alcohol and tobacco products that such increases reliably lower consumption. Some people quit buying completely. But most people still buy but buy less.

So, it’s proven. Higher taxes reduce consumption.

1. In my view alcohol needs no increases in taxes or very little. In moderation it’s actually good for you. It’s already taxed heavily. And, the increased harshness of drunk driving laws and enforcement have cut excess consumption by a lot.

2. As we’ve posted on from time to time, tobacco & tobacco smoke are so harmful, it might make sense to simply outlaw their use. They certainly deserve it. But that’s unlikely. And, given the US experience with recreational drugs and the alcohol Prohibition experiment, it may not even be a good idea with the market of millions of addicts who will still try to get them.

However, any tax increase of any size on tobacco & on smokable tobacco products is a great idea. It also is proven that it would help to continue to increase the number of places that people are not allowed to smoke since the second hand smoke is so harmful; &, with fewer places to smoke, fewer people will smoke and smokers will smoke less.

3. The big opportunity and the huge need for such taxes is on the food and drink components that are now untaxed and have begun to make nearly half the people in the United States and some other countries fat and diabetic and headed for massive increases in heart attacks and strokes and disability and more.

Sugar in every form, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, and refined grains are both unnecessary for human life and health and proven causes of obesity and disease when ingested every day in quantity for years at a time.

When that happened to 10 % of the people, the costs were high but affordable. Now that it’s half the people -- and in the children on the way to being adults will be 75% if nothing is done, we simply cannot afford the tab.

The good news is that taxing this stuff will immediately give the governments that tax it badly needed income that actually improves their local economy instead of slowing it down.

So, as I see it. Such taxes are inevitable. We need them badly to slow the consumption of this stuff and begin to reverse the high medical care costs they cause. And, the governments need the tax funds.

But we have to start somewhere -- as desirable as such taxes are.

This may be happening soon in Taiwan!

AFP, an international health news service, said today, Monday, 12-21-2009, that Taiwan is planning the world's first tax on junk foods to cut obesity rates.

The Bureau of Health Promotion is drafting a bill to levy a special tax on food that makes people fat, including sugary drinks, candy, cakes, fast food, and alcohol.

Revenues from the tax would finance promoting health awareness and knowledge and subsidize Taiwan's now cash-strapped national health system.

The bill, if approved by their parliament, could take effect around 2011.

The article had this quote.:

“ "Overweight problems are getting worse in Taiwan with 25 to 30 percent of children obese, and it will cause more strain on our national health system," said Beryl Sheu, chief of the foundation's food nutrition division.”

Of course, it might not pass or they might pass a watered down version that is too weak to be effective.

But the more this happens, the more likely it is that soon an effective tax will be passed. Once that happens, the positive effects on the treasury of the government involved and the health effects on their people will be so tempting to other governments, such taxes will happen all over the world.

For example, if you go to almost any fast food place and most restaurants you can get a 16 ounce soft drink for something like $1.39. But if that soft drink was taxed 5 cents and ounce because it was a soft drink and another 10 cents an ounce for the high fructose corn syrup in it, it would cost $3.79. Would fewer people buy them at all? Yes. Would the people who still buy them buy them less often? Yes. They might buy and drink 7 a week instead of 14. That way some people would lose 30 pounds of fat by not drinking any. And, the people who cut back from two a day to one would lose 15 pounds of fat.

The same effects would happen at home if something like sweet rolls, cookies or microwave popped corn began costing more for the taxes on the refined grains, the taxes on the sugar, the taxes on the excessive salt, and the very high taxes on the hydrogenated oils they contain.

Each such snack food with such multiple taxes would increase in cost by three to six times a piece. A box of cookies at $3.49 is affordable to many people. When it costs $14.89 because of the $11.40 in added taxes that it actually deserves, it will be a rare treat if at all.

Since that’s closer to what a mostly sedentary person’s body can handle, that will make a huge improvement in obesity levels and their resulting medical costs.

The good news is that individual people can learn better than to eat or drink this stuff and stop now even before such taxes show up.

But the even better news is that the huge and avoidable medical costs, death, and suffering of the people who don’t know any better will drop like a stone when adequate taxes on this stuff exist everywhere.

Sugar and a sedentary lifestyle may shrink your brain….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 8-25-2009

There were two online stories today that I think belong together.

1. In one, the American Heart Association was reported to have announced a new set of guidelines for sugar intake and noted that the average intake in the United States is now far above their suggested guidelines. They state the average American eats 22 teaspoons of sugar for 355 direct extra calories each day with much of that coming from soft drinks. (That’s a bit over 88 grams a day of sugar.)

2. In the other, a study was done showing that in obese people virtually every part of their brain was 8% smaller; and comparable to people who were lean but 16 years older. And, even in overweight people, their brains were 4% smaller; and were comparable to people who were lean but 8 years older.

That article that was at Livescience.com today, & titled,

“Obese People Have 'Severe Brain Degeneration.' “

They suggest that this shrinkage may directly contribute to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease or other mental decline by literally shrinking your “cognitive reserves.”

(And, in it, they also note that obesity has “….many negative health effects, including increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and some cancers. It's also been shown to reduce sexual activity.” – in addition to this excess brain shrinkage.)

Both eating too much sugar and getting too little exercise tend to make people fat -- each doing so independently. Doing both almost guarantees it.

Sugar and related sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup have no fiber or other nutrition. So they tend not to make you as much less hungry as foods that do have fiber and other nutrition even when those foods have some natural sugar. They also create strong rebound hunger that causes you to overeat other foods in addition to the calories in the sugar. Artificial sweeteners tend to fatten also because they usually create more of this rebound hunger along with a strong craving for real sugar or foods containing it.

One analysis I read suggests that this excess sugar intake and the overeating it helps cause are most of the reason for the explosion in obesity in people who eat the excess sugar and are so far more than the more sedentary population.

I think that the increase in sedentary lifestyles and decrease in average amounts of exercise have been understated enough that this analysis may be partially incorrect.

Since exercise has been found to literally grow new brain cells -- and people who exercise have been found to have less brain shrinkage, it’s clear to me that a solution to obesity, whether for everyone or an individual person wanting to stay lean or lose excess fat, needs to include both very little sugar intake and enough regular exercise.

One of the reports on the new American Heart Association guidelines said that some of the soft drink manufacturers had gone on record as saying their products were not part of this problem.

Busted !!

Unfortunately for them, the data show the reverse. It is true that someone who exercises regularly can probably drink a regular or diet soft drink once or twice a week without harm or a lot of fat gain.

But according to a new book on fat loss I’m reading, a Harvard study found that people who drink one soft drink a day tend to be an average of 15 pounds fatter than people who don’t.

And, since the average American drinks 2 soft drinks a day; and obese Americans tend to drink 3 or more a day, the data show otherwise.

The best policy for anyone who wants to avoid being too fat and its associated health problems for themselves is to virtually never drink soft drinks.

Since the soft drink makers have a lot of money to lobby with and a very strong incentive to do so; and most Americans still think of soft drinks as a normal and harmless pleasure that is moderately inexpensive, it may well take far too long to tax sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners and impose an additional and separate tax on all soft drinks.

But, there ARE two strong forces pushing in the opposite direction.

1. The genie has been released from the bottle and cannot be put back. It’s now becoming public knowledge that excess sugar causes obesity and diseases that otherwise would be avoidable, particularly in people who are sedentary; and most of the dramatic run up in obesity is closely linked to increased soft drink consumption.

2. The dramatic increases in health care costs in the United States due to this increased obesity to treat the resulting diseases are becoming a severe drain on the economy. To end this, soft drinks will be heavily taxed or even outlawed outright. Given the way cigarettes have been handled, I suspect heavy taxes and regulations are more likely than an outright ban.

The informed policy makers now know these heavy taxes should be imposed. Our economy would be much better off it that happened within a year. But I think it will take at least 10 years to get adequate taxes in place.

So, whatever you pay in medical expenses and insurance, get ready for it to cover less and cost more soon -- about doubling those trends from the last few years before that solution is in place.

By the way, the soft drink manufacturers should be grateful for one thing. The level of sugar intake for men and for women the American Heart Association suggested is OK is about a third of current consumption. But those guidelines are too high! Given the relatively sedentary American population, their guidelines, if driven by health and obesity prevention considerations, should be half or a third as high.

Good news on fighting the obesity epidemic....

Today's post: Thursday, 4-9-2009

There are several things that tend to make you fat or keep you that way. And, many of those same things also tend to cause type 2 diabetes and heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases.

So, anytime I read something with important information on how to prevent this situation or help fix it, it really gets my attention.

For example, if you are sedentary and never active and never get any very vigorous exercise from competitive sports or strength training or interval cardio AND you eat lots of fast carbs (high glycemic foods) such as foods with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and refined grains and very little fiber, you will get “insulin resistant” which means you get high levels of insulin in your blood that no longer lowers excess levels of blood sugar. And, if that becomes excessive or goes on too long, you get fat; you get high blood sugar to the point it begins destroying your capillaries and the parts of you that that depend on them; and your chance of getting a heart attack and becoming senile skyrocket.

Unfortunately, the number of people who are now seriously fat, what the medical profession calls obese, is going up dramatically world wide and even more dramatically here in the United States.

A recent news story reports that in the United States now one in five four year olds is fat.

And, those kids grow up to be fat kids and fat teens. That’s really bad news because an alarming number of those kids now have type 2 diabetes and even early heart disease.

That means huge increases in health care costs will soon come into a system that is almost collapsing from the increases in costs that have already happened.

And, it can be truly dreadful for the kids it happens to. A recent American Heart Association ad showed a picture the back of a woman at the beach. She looked to be a 50 year old woman who was about 70 to 100 pounds overfat.

The caption read.:

“I have high cholesterol.
I am at risk for heart disease.
I am 13 years old.”

OUCH!!

Even worse, there are now literally hundreds of thousands of kids all over the United States both boys and girls who look just like she does. Some of them have type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure too from the lifestyle they follow. We are already paying for their healthcare costs this causes too. Kids didn’t get those diseases in previous generations.

Many of them will grow up to face heart attacks and strokes before they are 45 years old. And, most frightening of all, many of them will need kidney dialysis -- or custodial care because they will develop early vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

The implications of this are truly dire. If that many of our adults who should be at the prime of life and effective in their work cannot work & generate that much more in health care costs, our economy will be swamped by it all.

And, although two of the 3 main causes of this are lack of exercise and eating a lot of refined grain an sweetened foods plus NOT eating fruits and vegetables, the third cause, drinking regular soft drinks instead of water, may be the most effective of the 3 in causing this situation.

Studies show that people, adults and kids alike, who drink a lot of soft drinks wear those calories as fat. The researchers have found the cause of this is very simple.: Soft drinks add calories to your food intake but simply don’t register in a way that makes you less hungry even a little bit.

Refined grain foods and sweetened foods are almost as bad; and a strong cause of the increase in obesity as is being totally sedentary; but soft drinks and the increase in their consumption are so much more effective at fattening people, they are clearly a major cause of this problem and may well be the number one cause.

So, causing most kids to drink no soft drinks at all, would be extremely desirable. Even causing a 40 % drop in the average number of soft drinks kids drink per week would help.

But studies show over 70 of adults drink soft drinks and have so little knowledge of these effects that they see nothing at all wrong with kids drinking the soft drinks they do.

The truly frightening thing is that the problem is so severe and getting worse so fast, there simply isn’t time or money enough to educate everyone to what’s happening in time to fix it.

But today’s news is much more encouraging.

Reuters online health news today has a story they released late yesterday. They titled it.

“U.S. experts argue for tax on sweet drinks.”

Kelly Brownell of Yale University in Connecticut & New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden are quoted as saying some very promising things. They apparently originally wrote those things in a New England Journal of Medicine article or in an interview that happened on Wednesday this week.

They state that a penny ounce tax on soft drinks would cut consumption by as much as 10 % and raise “billions of dollars” to help state and local governments with health education programs and health care costs driven by soft drink consumption.

Given that soft drinks in fast food places and restaurants cost the fast food places and restaurants something like 5 to 10 cents per dollar instead of the 30 cents that the food they serve does, a penny per ounce is trivial.

Given this and the severity of the problems caused by massive soft drink consumption, I don’t think they thought big enough. Five to ten cents an ounce would be much more desirable.

But I still enthusiastically applaud them. Once we tax soft drinks at such a trivially low rate and establish that they are a health hazard that should be taxed in the public interest and to keep our economy from collapsing from the effects of that hazard, the taxes will be raised later.

Cigarette and tobacco taxes have been; and soft drink and related taxes on comparable foods will too. Of course, that’s also the real reason the soft drink industry is against such a tiny tax.

The two experts were quoted as saying that even the penny an ounce tax would cut consumption by about 10 % & then they said this.:

"It is difficult to imagine producing behavior change of this magnitude through education alone, even if government devoted massive resources to the task."

I agree with them. With the tax, the effect is virtually guaranteed. And, the governments who badly need the revenue now TAKE IN money.

Needless to say the soft drink companies do not favor this idea.

They point out that as an industry they employ over 220,000 people in the United States.

But if they make that many people a year virtually unemployable due to physical or mental disability their product causes and cost our economy over 10 times the combined salary of all 220,000 people in avoidable health care costs each year, so what?

People often have to change jobs when the economy changes and renders a product or service obsolete. Most of those 220,000 people could also. In fact so many of them are in marketing and sales which are transportable skills, they may find it easier than people in most industries to get new jobs.

The article pointed out that studies show that children and adolescents now take in 10 to 15 % of all their calories in soft drinks and other sweetened drinks. That quite literally means if they drank none at all, they would be 10 to 15 % lighter on the average; and virtually all those pounds would be fat they no longer gained


Brownell and Frieden said the tiny tax would raise $1.2 billion in New York state alone.

That would come to something like 12 billion a year for the country as a whole.

And here’s their take on the real cost of soft drinks.:


"The contribution of unhealthful diets to healthcare costs is already high and is increasing -- an estimated $79 billion is spent annually for overweight and obesity alone -- and approximately half of these costs are paid by Medicare and Medicaid, at taxpayers' expense," they wrote.

"Sugar-sweetened beverages may be the single largest driver of the obesity epidemic," they added.

"For each extra can or glass of sugared beverage consumed per day, the likelihood of a child's becoming obese increases by 60 percent."

So, if we want better healthcare in this country, far fewer fat and sick kids and adults, and a stronger economy instead of one that is staggering under such avoidable costs, we should tax soft drinks everywhere in the United States immediately.

However, even a penny an ounce in a single progressive and health oriented state such as Minnesota or Iowa or Vermont might get us started.

But it’s quite clear that a 5 to 10 cent an ounce tax on all soft drinks—including diet soft drinks, & on high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and refined grains is actually what’s needed.

Still we have to start somewhere. Now that recognized health professionals have proposed this tiny tax on soft drinks, the worst offender, and have done so in the influential New England Journal of Medicine, we might get there in time to do some good & prevent the massive harm we are experiencing and paying for now; AND begin to keep it from getting worse.