I'm aware that someone who is inactive but eats healthy is unlikely to be obese just as someone who exercises everyday but eats unhealthy is unlikely to be obese. I was saying that exercise reduces the negative effects of poor diet so it would help those who can only afford less healthy foods. If all public schools had mandatory gym classes for all students without physical disabilities, then there would be less childhood obesity. I understand the importance of healthy diets though.
I'm aware that someone who is inactive but eats healthy is unlikely to be obese just as someone who exercises everyday but eats unhealthy is unlikely to be obese. I was saying that exercise reduces the negative effects of poor diet so it would help those who can only afford less healthy foods. If all public schools had mandatory gym classes for all students without physical disabilities, then there would be less childhood obesity. I understand the importance of healthy diets though.
... gym class isn't mandatory anymore? I mean I know in High School we only had to take 2 years of gym, but other than that I never remembered gym being optional.
I don't understand this "eating healthy is expensive" shit. A giant bag of frozen veggies is maybe $2 at Stop&Shop. Pasta is slightly over $1 for a 3-serving box. A bag of rice that will last over a month is $16. Hell, turkey is something like $2.50 a pound. Fruit is cheap. I spent maybe $60 on groceries last week, and 7 days later I'm still going strong with 3 good, healthy meals a day and food left over.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
Psycho Internet Hawk on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
And as for the "difficult to tax just unhealthy foods," I think my high-fructose corn syrup tax would be a great way to focus that particular tax. Even if they replaced it with sugars from other sources, it would still be an improvement.
Or we could just stop subsidizing corn and start trading with Cuba so they put real sugar back in our Coke. HFCS sucks ass.
We wouldn't even need to start trading with Cuba, just drop the sugar tariffs, and South America would more than fill our needs.
Hell, they'd practically give it to us for free. Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, anyone?
Edit: Doesn't Brazil run almost completely on sugar ethanol, now? I'm pretty sure they could supply us with more than enough sugar to meet our needs.
I don't understand this "eating healthy is expensive" shit. A giant bag of frozen veggies is maybe $2 at Stop&Shop. Pasta is slightly over $1 for a 3-serving box. A bag of rice that will last over a month is $16. Hell, turkey is something like $2.50 a pound. Fruit is cheap. I spent maybe $60 on groceries last week, and 7 days later I'm still going strong with 3 good, healthy meals a day and food left over.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
It's a myth perpetuated by those who don't want to bother.
Hell, even if you can't afford fruit (it's expensive sometimes), a bottle of multivitamins costs like 15 bucks. A bottle of omega-3-6-9 pills costs 20 bucks (to replace fish, which is expensive).
I mean this stuff is out there and it really is affordable. You don't even have to look very hard.
There are so many layers of rubbish here it's difficult to even pierce the top level of strata, but since gaming doesn't have a legit, or politically viable lobby to counteract this type of gibberish then gaming will keep taking the hits.
Actually, that isn't really true come the end of March.
Thank you sir, for this link. Very interesting.
If you're able to and interested in gaming news past what's coming out I'd recommend you try listening to the 1up Yours podcast. It's a long weekly podcast but has some great info and opinions on it. It's where I first found out just a couple days ago that this had happened.
I believe the real reason for obesity is primarily lack of exercise. Poor diet is a contributer but would not be so bad if a person who has a poor diet did sit-ups and ran every day.
Neither one is the principal reason - they go hand in hand. Someone who exercises a bunch is unlikely to be obese, regardless of how much he eats. Someone who eats really well is unlikely to be obese, regardless of how sedentary he is.
Actually, no.
...
So you're right in a sense that exercise and diet go hand in hand, but your explanation is wrong.
Except I didn't provide an explanation, I just mentioned the fact that someone who is very active is not terribly likely to be obese. I didn't even say "overweight", I specified obesity. Yes, some people will be able to cram enough into their holes that they can still manage to be obese even if they run five miles a day, but as a rule of thumb, if you're burning 400 calories a day through exercise, it takes almost a conscious decision to become a giant lard-ass.
What you're saying is that people who are already giant lard-asses and then decide to lose weight will see little in the way of returns until they start eating better in addition to working out, which is sort of true, to an extent. If you start regularly working out when you weren't before, you will lose weight, unless your body starts violating the laws of physics - the extra energy you're using has to come from somewhere. But you might not dramatically reduce your weight, and it likely won't happen quickly, this is true. Irrelevant to my point, but true.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
What you're saying is that people who are already giant lard-asses and then decide to lose weight will see little in the way of returns until they start eating better in addition to working out, which is sort of true, to an extent. If you start regularly working out when you weren't before, you will lose weight, unless your body starts violating the laws of physics - the extra energy you're using has to come from somewhere. But you might not dramatically reduce your weight, and it likely won't happen quickly, this is true. Irrelevant to my point, but true.
Yes, they make up for the calories they burn during exercise by eating more because their body isn't used to the calorie deficit. It's the whole "I worked out today, I can go with a supersize meal tonight" mentality.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited January 2008
Games don't make fatties, bad parenting makes fatties.
I don't understand this "eating healthy is expensive" shit. A giant bag of frozen veggies is maybe $2 at Stop&Shop. Pasta is slightly over $1 for a 3-serving box. A bag of rice that will last over a month is $16. Hell, turkey is something like $2.50 a pound. Fruit is cheap. I spent maybe $60 on groceries last week, and 7 days later I'm still going strong with 3 good, healthy meals a day and food left over.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
It's a myth perpetuated by those who don't want to bother.
Hell, even if you can't afford fruit (it's expensive sometimes), a bottle of multivitamins costs like 15 bucks. A bottle of omega-3-6-9 pills costs 20 bucks (to replace fish, which is expensive).
I mean this stuff is out there and it really is affordable. You don't even have to look very hard.
It's not that the food itself is expensive, it's that it comes with a lot of attendant costs. That $1 box of pasta isn't going to do you any good without a pot to cook it in, clean water, a stove, and time to cook it. If you're living someplace without a kitchen, don't have the money to sink into kitchen start-up costs, that's not going to be possible. A box of pasta by itself isn't terribly healthy, either; you need some vegetables and protein with that, which also have to be cooked. And if you don't have a refridgerator, it's much harder to buy in bulk, which adds more cost to it.
Plus, if you're living in the inner city, you very likely don't have a big grocery store nearby, which means you're doing all your shopping at smaller grocery stores or convenience stores. That $1 box of pasta is now $2.50 or more, which is going to seem like a much worse deal when you can get a microwave burrito for $1 that, often, you can cook in-store, and which at least is going to provide you with enough energy to get through your day.
ege, that $15 or $20 for vitamins is going to be a lot harder to come up with if you're barely making rent as-is, especially when you consider that, if you buy cheap, unhealthy crap for the above reason, that's at least a week's worth of food. Not everyone has that kind of disposable income. Again, it's a case of having certain advantages leading to more advantages: if you already have the money for a kitchen and a refridgerator, it's a lot easier to save money on food.
I don't understand this "eating healthy is expensive" shit. A giant bag of frozen veggies is maybe $2 at Stop&Shop. Pasta is slightly over $1 for a 3-serving box. A bag of rice that will last over a month is $16. Hell, turkey is something like $2.50 a pound. Fruit is cheap. I spent maybe $60 on groceries last week, and 7 days later I'm still going strong with 3 good, healthy meals a day and food left over.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
I'll give you that, with a little effort and planning, you can make 3 square meals a day for the cheap. I think the real problem are the "convenient" foods, the Hamburger Helper and TV Dinners. Although cooking dinner itself seems to be a lost art, as entire meals can be provided faster on the whole than the DIY kind. And in those cases, cheaper usually gets you the more calorie-laden, nutritionally-void foods. You can get a full meal at McD's (burger, fries, and a drink) for about the same price as a sandwich from Safeway or Whole Foods. Going to a Soup/Salad Bar restaurant (Souplantation, Fresh Choice, etc) is more expensive than going to a Greasy Spoon Diner. Pasta and rice may be cheap, but they're also calorie laden, and not terribly nutritious on their own. Not to mention that the "dressing up" of the cheap stuff is usually where the calories lie. Hell, I can't remember a salad that I ate as a kid that wasn't doused in ranch dressing, and even more recently, I had dinner at my family's house and the "veggies" were basically a cheese casserole with overcooked frozen veggie mix.
At any rate, that's kind of getting off topic. I don't think sin taxes work quite as well as we'd like, and I think that if the government wants to stave off obesity, they'd better come up with a better plan than this.
Yes, but there are a lot more kids getting lard-ass fat than the ghetto children living in kitchenless slums five miles from the grocery store.
The vast majority of families, even of poor families, have no excuse other than laziness or assertions that they can't figure out how to cook a damned carrot.
ElJeffe on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
Depends on how you cook them. Stick 'em in a skillet with a little olive oil and sprinkle some cinnamon on them and they're practically a dessert item.
Boiled carrots are awful, sure, but if you're boiling fresh veggies you fail at life.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Raw carrots are delicious. I remember pulling them out of the ground in my grandpa's garden.
Sauteed asparagus > sauteed carrots.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited January 2008
I think I've enjoyed them parboiled then pan-seared in butter with salt and pepper. Actually, I'm not sure I parboiled them first. Anyways, probably not terribly healthy either way.
Raw carrots are delicious. I remember pulling them out of the ground in my grandpa's garden.
Sauteed asparagus > sauteed carrots.
Right-thinking people BBQ or broil their asparagus after brushing it with olive oil and lightly salting and peppering it.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
...but if you're boiling fresh veggies you fail at life.
I honestly don't know where I'd be if I hadn't met my current girlfriend (probably still relying on George Foreman-burgers for sustenance), but this truth needs to be taught in schools or something. If schools can be responsible for a child's sex education, why can't they be responsible for teaching kids how to cook a damn meal properly?
Sin taxes are awful. Trying to discourage behavior is having the government make a morality decision, which I don't think are nation should dictate moral rights.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited January 2008
Other behaviors the government discourages: murder, fraud.
I don't understand this "eating healthy is expensive" shit. A giant bag of frozen veggies is maybe $2 at Stop&Shop. Pasta is slightly over $1 for a 3-serving box. A bag of rice that will last over a month is $16. Hell, turkey is something like $2.50 a pound. Fruit is cheap. I spent maybe $60 on groceries last week, and 7 days later I'm still going strong with 3 good, healthy meals a day and food left over.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
It's a myth perpetuated by those who don't want to bother.
Hell, even if you can't afford fruit (it's expensive sometimes), a bottle of multivitamins costs like 15 bucks. A bottle of omega-3-6-9 pills costs 20 bucks (to replace fish, which is expensive).
I mean this stuff is out there and it really is affordable. You don't even have to look very hard.
It's not that the food itself is expensive, it's that it comes with a lot of attendant costs. That $1 box of pasta isn't going to do you any good without a pot to cook it in, clean water, a stove, and time to cook it. If you're living someplace without a kitchen, don't have the money to sink into kitchen start-up costs, that's not going to be possible. A box of pasta by itself isn't terribly healthy, either; you need some vegetables and protein with that, which also have to be cooked. And if you don't have a refridgerator, it's much harder to buy in bulk, which adds more cost to it.
Plus, if you're living in the inner city, you very likely don't have a big grocery store nearby, which means you're doing all your shopping at smaller grocery stores or convenience stores. That $1 box of pasta is now $2.50 or more, which is going to seem like a much worse deal when you can get a microwave burrito for $1 that, often, you can cook in-store, and which at least is going to provide you with enough energy to get through your day.
ege, that $15 or $20 for vitamins is going to be a lot harder to come up with if you're barely making rent as-is, especially when you consider that, if you buy cheap, unhealthy crap for the above reason, that's at least a week's worth of food. Not everyone has that kind of disposable income. Again, it's a case of having certain advantages leading to more advantages: if you already have the money for a kitchen and a refridgerator, it's a lot easier to save money on food.
You're talking about people living on the brink of extreme poverty. You're right, but your argument, while perfectly valid, isn't necessarily a counter to mine because mine encompasses all income levels. There are plenty of people who have fridges (that hold nothing other than frozen TV dinners), access to a kitchen and cooking utensils (that have never been used, not even to cook an omelette), and enough brains to figure out how to save money on food and eat healthy at the same time (but are too lazy to bother).
Incidentally, like Eljeffe says, obesity tends to be more common among those kinds of people, rather than those whom you talk about. You know, the kind that come to the soup kitchen I volunteer at. Those won't be hurt by this income tax because we buy our food bulk from the wholesaler, and we don't hand out shitty food, i.e. the kind that would be taxed.
--
Back to videogames. I think the idea is somewhat valid. It's not really about pointing fingers, but about recognizing that sitting in front of the TV and moving nothing other than one's fingers is not going to help one get out of their sedentary lifestyle, which is a very strong contributing factor to obesity.
No one is suggesting that videogames cause obesity. That's a strawman established by people who would rather not see their beloved, beloved games taxed.
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
Other behaviors the government discourages: murder, fraud.
Those have a direct negative effect on people. None of the others directly impose on other people's life, sometimes drugs and alcohol might lead people to commit other crimes, but the actual affect of those life choices don't effect anyone.
Other behaviors the government discourages: murder, fraud.
Those have a direct negative effect on people. None of the others directly impose on other people's life, sometimes drugs and alcohol might lead people to commit other crimes, but the actual affect of those life choices don't effect anyone.
What about the Sin Tax on smoking?
Narian on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
ege02 on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
But as the study shows it's not just well-to-do people who are obese but even the poorer families too.
And they buy TVs from Walmart.
Crap TVs...like Vizio...and Vizio.
Besides what in recent American history makes you think people are fiscally responsible? Is it the average amount of debt people have, the boom in the collection industry, or all the bankruptcy attorneys that have Jags?
Taxing TVs isn't going to stop people from eating fast food on a daily basis or not exercising, it's an effect of obesity, not the cause of it.
And taxing games is going to do even less.
Hell tax fast food if you think that shit will help, which I doubt but it's more reasonable than something that you can't even eat.
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
But as the study shows it's not just well-to-do people who are obese but even the poorer families too.
And they buy TVs from Walmart.
It was a lot cooler back in the day when poor people were starving. Now they are not only fat but they are buying televisions! We gotta put a stop to this.
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
That seems like very shaky reasoning.
Because it is. Cheaper TVs aren't all that crappy. Going down from 1080p to 720p or something with lower contrast isn't going to make anyone watch less TV.
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
That seems like very shaky reasoning.
Because it is. Cheaper TVs aren't all that crappy. Going down from 1080p to 720p or something with lower contrast isn't going to make anyone watch less TV.
Taxing a TV is only going to discourage people from buying bigger, more expensive TVs, not TVs altogether. So, unless there's some evidence that people get considerably fatter while sitting on front of more expensive TVs I'm gonna say this is pretty dumb.
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
That seems like very shaky reasoning.
Because it is. Cheaper TVs aren't all that crappy. Going down from 1080p to 720p or something with lower contrast isn't going to make anyone watch less TV.
You misunderstood. My reasoning is that they'd watch TV more often to justify the big purchase. The human mind has this fallacious habit of making decisions based on sunk costs.
I sadly live in New Mexico they were proud of the fact being the 3rd poorest state they had a surplus of 58 million for various programs to help the poor from last year.
It's not really government's responsibility help parents take care of their brats. It's not that much to force them to go outside and work off some of that fat.
I will write or somehow inform my representative that if this goes through I would spend my money outside of the state to get the games instead of here
New research discounts a common theory on why poor children are more likely to be overweight than children from wealthier families. Iowa State University researchers say their analysis shows that a lack of food isn't necessarily to blame, although they're not sure why so many children from low-income families are overweight.
I've seen a fair bit of research lately linking chronic sleep deprivation to obesity, as well as regulatory problems like diabetes. And one of the chief things to blame for fucked up sleep patterns across society is our tendency to surround ourselves with electronic devices - not just game machines, but computers, TVs, phones etc. I doubt that more than 1 out of 5 people on this forum go to bed at a sane hour regularly, and a fair chunk of us are known to post regularly at 2-5am. And we're not exactly out of the ordinary next to general society, either, although a lot more people stay up to work or care for others, or study etc. rather than piss about.
Something to think about. Taxing isn't the answer, but switching off is probably a big part of it.
New research discounts a common theory on why poor children are more likely to be overweight than children from wealthier families. Iowa State University researchers say their analysis shows that a lack of food isn't necessarily to blame, although they're not sure why so many children from low-income families are overweight.
I've seen a fair bit of research lately linking chronic sleep deprivation to obesity, as well as regulatory problems like diabetes. And one of the chief things to blame for fucked up sleep patterns across society is our tendency to surround ourselves with electronic devices - not just game machines, but computers, TVs, phones etc. I doubt that more than 1 out of 5 people on this forum go to bed at a sane hour regularly, and a fair chunk of us are known to post regularly at 2-5am. And we're not exactly out of the ordinary next to general society, either, although a lot more people stay up to work or care for others, or study etc. rather than piss about.
Something to think about. Taxing isn't the answer, but switching off is probably a big part of it.
Do you have a link or something that that, Cat? I'm sceptical how much of it is linked to the sleep pattern as opposed to the diet and reason for people staying up late. I know when I'm gaming at 4am and I'm hungry, I'll just grab whatever shit I find in the cupboard that takes no effort to prepare. Equally, I'll stay up late when I go out into town and drink. Neither one of those is meant to be good for your waistline.
Well, that's kind of the point. An interrupted schedule, particularly one where you're tired a lot of the time, leads you do less healthy things. But primarily, sitting on your ass is pretty much an integral feature of using everything I listed above (bar DDR and some Wii games, but if anyone is stupid enough to argue that those two things are either the majority of electronic interactions, or that they can compete with not-sitting-on-your-ass, I'll laugh long and loud).
The research I'm recalling was outlined in a feature article in The Weekend Australian Magazine a month or two back. I can't find a version online, but it was very very thorough. A simple google on sleep and fat or obesity turns up quite a bit though.
I really want to head off people getting defensive about this - after all, its not simply games I'm singling out as problematic, but TV watching, net surfing, working at a desk, working night shifts, etc etc etc. Our society is turning 24-hour and becoming more sedentary primarily as a function of our economic system. Secondly, I feel quite comfortable pointing this out at 10pm on a weeknight while dog-tired and stressed, having worked at a desk all day, bought my dinner, and skipped out on going to the gym yet again. I'm not obese, but I'm slowly gaining back the weight I lost last year. I'm a case in fucking point, man :P
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... gym class isn't mandatory anymore? I mean I know in High School we only had to take 2 years of gym, but other than that I never remembered gym being optional.
If anything, living off Cheetos and McDonalds is much more expensive.
Edit: Doesn't Brazil run almost completely on sugar ethanol, now? I'm pretty sure they could supply us with more than enough sugar to meet our needs.
It's a myth perpetuated by those who don't want to bother.
Hell, even if you can't afford fruit (it's expensive sometimes), a bottle of multivitamins costs like 15 bucks. A bottle of omega-3-6-9 pills costs 20 bucks (to replace fish, which is expensive).
I mean this stuff is out there and it really is affordable. You don't even have to look very hard.
Except I didn't provide an explanation, I just mentioned the fact that someone who is very active is not terribly likely to be obese. I didn't even say "overweight", I specified obesity. Yes, some people will be able to cram enough into their holes that they can still manage to be obese even if they run five miles a day, but as a rule of thumb, if you're burning 400 calories a day through exercise, it takes almost a conscious decision to become a giant lard-ass.
What you're saying is that people who are already giant lard-asses and then decide to lose weight will see little in the way of returns until they start eating better in addition to working out, which is sort of true, to an extent. If you start regularly working out when you weren't before, you will lose weight, unless your body starts violating the laws of physics - the extra energy you're using has to come from somewhere. But you might not dramatically reduce your weight, and it likely won't happen quickly, this is true. Irrelevant to my point, but true.
Yes, they make up for the calories they burn during exercise by eating more because their body isn't used to the calorie deficit. It's the whole "I worked out today, I can go with a supersize meal tonight" mentality.
It's not that the food itself is expensive, it's that it comes with a lot of attendant costs. That $1 box of pasta isn't going to do you any good without a pot to cook it in, clean water, a stove, and time to cook it. If you're living someplace without a kitchen, don't have the money to sink into kitchen start-up costs, that's not going to be possible. A box of pasta by itself isn't terribly healthy, either; you need some vegetables and protein with that, which also have to be cooked. And if you don't have a refridgerator, it's much harder to buy in bulk, which adds more cost to it.
Plus, if you're living in the inner city, you very likely don't have a big grocery store nearby, which means you're doing all your shopping at smaller grocery stores or convenience stores. That $1 box of pasta is now $2.50 or more, which is going to seem like a much worse deal when you can get a microwave burrito for $1 that, often, you can cook in-store, and which at least is going to provide you with enough energy to get through your day.
ege, that $15 or $20 for vitamins is going to be a lot harder to come up with if you're barely making rent as-is, especially when you consider that, if you buy cheap, unhealthy crap for the above reason, that's at least a week's worth of food. Not everyone has that kind of disposable income. Again, it's a case of having certain advantages leading to more advantages: if you already have the money for a kitchen and a refridgerator, it's a lot easier to save money on food.
I'll give you that, with a little effort and planning, you can make 3 square meals a day for the cheap. I think the real problem are the "convenient" foods, the Hamburger Helper and TV Dinners. Although cooking dinner itself seems to be a lost art, as entire meals can be provided faster on the whole than the DIY kind. And in those cases, cheaper usually gets you the more calorie-laden, nutritionally-void foods. You can get a full meal at McD's (burger, fries, and a drink) for about the same price as a sandwich from Safeway or Whole Foods. Going to a Soup/Salad Bar restaurant (Souplantation, Fresh Choice, etc) is more expensive than going to a Greasy Spoon Diner. Pasta and rice may be cheap, but they're also calorie laden, and not terribly nutritious on their own. Not to mention that the "dressing up" of the cheap stuff is usually where the calories lie. Hell, I can't remember a salad that I ate as a kid that wasn't doused in ranch dressing, and even more recently, I had dinner at my family's house and the "veggies" were basically a cheese casserole with overcooked frozen veggie mix.
At any rate, that's kind of getting off topic. I don't think sin taxes work quite as well as we'd like, and I think that if the government wants to stave off obesity, they'd better come up with a better plan than this.
The vast majority of families, even of poor families, have no excuse other than laziness or assertions that they can't figure out how to cook a damned carrot.
Depends on how you cook them. Stick 'em in a skillet with a little olive oil and sprinkle some cinnamon on them and they're practically a dessert item.
Boiled carrots are awful, sure, but if you're boiling fresh veggies you fail at life.
I prefer my carrots steamed, raw is just, blech.
Sauteed asparagus > sauteed carrots.
Right-thinking people BBQ or broil their asparagus after brushing it with olive oil and lightly salting and peppering it.
I honestly don't know where I'd be if I hadn't met my current girlfriend (probably still relying on George Foreman-burgers for sustenance), but this truth needs to be taught in schools or something. If schools can be responsible for a child's sex education, why can't they be responsible for teaching kids how to cook a damn meal properly?
You're talking about people living on the brink of extreme poverty. You're right, but your argument, while perfectly valid, isn't necessarily a counter to mine because mine encompasses all income levels. There are plenty of people who have fridges (that hold nothing other than frozen TV dinners), access to a kitchen and cooking utensils (that have never been used, not even to cook an omelette), and enough brains to figure out how to save money on food and eat healthy at the same time (but are too lazy to bother).
Incidentally, like Eljeffe says, obesity tends to be more common among those kinds of people, rather than those whom you talk about. You know, the kind that come to the soup kitchen I volunteer at. Those won't be hurt by this income tax because we buy our food bulk from the wholesaler, and we don't hand out shitty food, i.e. the kind that would be taxed.
--
Back to videogames. I think the idea is somewhat valid. It's not really about pointing fingers, but about recognizing that sitting in front of the TV and moving nothing other than one's fingers is not going to help one get out of their sedentary lifestyle, which is a very strong contributing factor to obesity.
No one is suggesting that videogames cause obesity. That's a strawman established by people who would rather not see their beloved, beloved games taxed.
Those have a direct negative effect on people. None of the others directly impose on other people's life, sometimes drugs and alcohol might lead people to commit other crimes, but the actual affect of those life choices don't effect anyone.
What about the Sin Tax on smoking?
I don't think they get fatter watching more expensive TVs, but I think they watch TV more often if it's a nice, expensive TV.
But as the study shows it's not just well-to-do people who are obese but even the poorer families too.
And they buy TVs from Walmart.
Crap TVs...like Vizio...and Vizio.
Besides what in recent American history makes you think people are fiscally responsible? Is it the average amount of debt people have, the boom in the collection industry, or all the bankruptcy attorneys that have Jags?
Taxing TVs isn't going to stop people from eating fast food on a daily basis or not exercising, it's an effect of obesity, not the cause of it.
And taxing games is going to do even less.
Hell tax fast food if you think that shit will help, which I doubt but it's more reasonable than something that you can't even eat.
That seems like very shaky reasoning.
Tax video games or T.V.s? Sure. Why the hell not.
It was a lot cooler back in the day when poor people were starving. Now they are not only fat but they are buying televisions! We gotta put a stop to this.
I'm with you.
Because it is. Cheaper TVs aren't all that crappy. Going down from 1080p to 720p or something with lower contrast isn't going to make anyone watch less TV.
Give me High Def or Give me Health!!!
You misunderstood. My reasoning is that they'd watch TV more often to justify the big purchase. The human mind has this fallacious habit of making decisions based on sunk costs.
It's not really government's responsibility help parents take care of their brats. It's not that much to force them to go outside and work off some of that fat.
I will write or somehow inform my representative that if this goes through I would spend my money outside of the state to get the games instead of here
I would write more but this was a rushed post
I've seen a fair bit of research lately linking chronic sleep deprivation to obesity, as well as regulatory problems like diabetes. And one of the chief things to blame for fucked up sleep patterns across society is our tendency to surround ourselves with electronic devices - not just game machines, but computers, TVs, phones etc. I doubt that more than 1 out of 5 people on this forum go to bed at a sane hour regularly, and a fair chunk of us are known to post regularly at 2-5am. And we're not exactly out of the ordinary next to general society, either, although a lot more people stay up to work or care for others, or study etc. rather than piss about.
Something to think about. Taxing isn't the answer, but switching off is probably a big part of it.
Do you have a link or something that that, Cat? I'm sceptical how much of it is linked to the sleep pattern as opposed to the diet and reason for people staying up late. I know when I'm gaming at 4am and I'm hungry, I'll just grab whatever shit I find in the cupboard that takes no effort to prepare. Equally, I'll stay up late when I go out into town and drink. Neither one of those is meant to be good for your waistline.
The research I'm recalling was outlined in a feature article in The Weekend Australian Magazine a month or two back. I can't find a version online, but it was very very thorough. A simple google on sleep and fat or obesity turns up quite a bit though.
I really want to head off people getting defensive about this - after all, its not simply games I'm singling out as problematic, but TV watching, net surfing, working at a desk, working night shifts, etc etc etc. Our society is turning 24-hour and becoming more sedentary primarily as a function of our economic system. Secondly, I feel quite comfortable pointing this out at 10pm on a weeknight while dog-tired and stressed, having worked at a desk all day, bought my dinner, and skipped out on going to the gym yet again. I'm not obese, but I'm slowly gaining back the weight I lost last year. I'm a case in fucking point, man :P