Posts by Bart Janssen
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
fat hate
WTF. Seriously what fate hate? Nobody was deriding people for being obese. For some reason (and I know offense is always in the eye of the beholder) someone felt offended by others saying obesity is a major health problem that will harm the lives of those suffering the disease (and yeah I know those are hard words).
But frankly some of the comments about being obese are akin to "my father smoked till he was 87".
Obesity is a huge health problem. That is NOT saying obese people are somehow less than human but it is saying that sitting on your hands for fear of causing offense is just not acceptable either.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Danielle,
We all need to think about how we talk about this.
Which is true. But also cannot be a reason to do nothing.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Lilith __,
Bart that is not remotely what anyone is saying here.
Do we tax things by simple-sugar content? That would include milk.
Sorry I misunderstood you as saying that we shouldn't tax sugar because it is a nutrient and therefore not unhealthy.
As for how you tax sugar. You do it the way you tax or apply duty to alcohol, by percentage. You can even set some tax free thresholds. Remember the aim is to reduce use of 6 teaspoon per glass of water drinks and their ilk, so slippery slope arguments aren't needed.
And yes there is a whole other ideological argument that can be used to distract us about keeping the tax system simple, but honestly those folks should be spending their effort targeting the various trust and company tax loopholes before they worry about a sugar tax/duty.
And yes there will be a couple of products where percentage makes no sense eg honey or maple syrup, but in this age of individual product tracking in supermarkets that really isn't a big deal so one exception invalidating the whole system arguments aren't needed either.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Lilith __,
While it’s true that food makes us fat, food also keeps us alive.
Sugar is a nutrient, not a poison.
That's like saying alcohol is a nutrient (which it is, kinda). Yes our bodies can use sugar but that doesn't mean it's healthy to eat large quantities of sugar.
I really don't understand this attitude. Nothing about these super high sugar foods is remotely nutritious. You may as well put 6 teaspoons of sugar in a glass of water and call it healthy, it really is a bizarre response.
Nobody is talking about banning sugar, what has been suggested is that products that have ridiculously high concentrations of sugar should be made less attractive.
I get why folks might have an ideological objection to using taxation to do that but to argue that these drinks are nutritious is just odd.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to James Butler,
I think is that the link between sugar and obesity is tenuous and poorly understood, where the link between tobacco and cancer is direct.
The link between high sugar foods and obesity is rock solid. Much more proven than the link between tobacco and cancer was 40 years ago when we first started taxing the hell out of tobacco.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to James Butler,
“Proven false” in what way?
Those arguments claimed taxing tobacco would make poor people poorer and reduce their standard of living - which would be bad.
No such drop in the standard of living occurred in response to tobacco taxes.
Instead fewer poor people spent money on cigarettes, improving their net wealth and their health. The exact opposite of the claims made by the shills for the tobacco companies.
It's possible taxing high sugar drinks might prove to be different.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to James Butler,
because tobacco isn’t food
So your problem is that a tax on high sugar foods/drinks is bad because it's essential for poor folk to eat/drink these products in a way that it is not essential for them to smoke???
Really?
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
highly likely (but certainly) true
...(but NOT certainly)...
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Lilith __,
And, as I and others have said above, sugar is a nutrient. Diet and its relationship with health is so complex.
You're arguing that because we can digest sugars they can't be bad for you. I don't think the data out there in the literature support that logic. We certainly didn't evolve to eat much sugar, not that evolutionary arguments are entirely trustworthy either.
The point is, just about every scientist who specializes in nutrition says that same thing, that foods with super high levels of sugar are not healthy sources of calories and strongly associated with a number of diseases.
And the point about artificial sweeteners is valid too - the thinking now is that artificial sweeteners condition people to want sweeter foods so while they may not get calories from the drink with artificial sweeteners they compensate by increasing the sugar content of the rest of their diet.
Nobody is suggesting reducing the consumption of high sugar drinks will solve all our diet problems - but they are a real outlier when it comes to food. 330 mL of liquid with 8 teaspoons of sugar in it is pretty extreme, that's like a latte with 6 teaspoons of sugar!
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to James Butler,
Worry about poverty first, and any problems which remain will by definition not be driven by poverty.
You are assuming that obesity is a health problem only in the poor. While it is biased towards the poor it is pretty widely spread across all income groups.
I have no problem with targeting poverty as a problem by, you know, throwing money at it.
But I have a real problem with you repeating arguments that were proven false with respect to tobacco. The harm to rich and poor from tobacco was significantly reduced by increasing the price. The same is highly likely (but certainly) true for the harm from high sugar foods.