Fat Tax | Teen Ink

Fat Tax

November 29, 2011
By CC0605 BRONZE, Evanston, Wyoming
CC0605 BRONZE, Evanston, Wyoming
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Imagine you’re in Wal*Mart. While your shopping you decide to buy some candy for your kid. You walk over to the candy aisle. You can get one bag of candy for $2.00. That seems like a fair price to you. In fact, it seems so fair to you that you buy two bags of candy. One for your kid and one for you. But what about your spouse? So you buy another bag of candy. 3 pounds of candy for $6.00. It’s Halloween all over again! All that candy, and no ones stopping you! Not even the cost makes you think twice.
Now think.
Think hard.
Really hard.
Does it seem right to devour 3 pounds of sugar, and no one stop you? Obviously your conscience has’nt complained much, so there isn’t really anyone here to stop you. But, is that a good thing? No. Something needs to be done to stop americans from eating them selves into obesity and health problems. Like taxing all non-nutritional foods.
To start off, people are becoming obese. They buy two boxes of sweet donuts, then eat them all on one large sloppy bite. Then, instead of going and exercising all that sugar off, they go and lay on the couch and either sleep or watch TV. It’s the hard truth people! We’ve all done it.
Along with that, all this leads to is major health problems. Diabetes, heart attacks, high blood sugar levels, etc. I mean, 18.8 million people have diabetes in America alone, says American Diabetes Association. ADA also says that 79 million people are pre-diabetes. All those American with health problems, because of one too many donuts. Think I’ve said enough on health issues.
Aside from that people are getting away with buying fat and sugar for a low price. Hello people! That’s like letting a kid into a candy store and letting him eat all the candy he wants. There’s no moderation at all. According to CDC, or Center for Disease Control, “ Manipulation of prices can yield changes in consumption.” BanlancedPolitics.org says that we can, “ discourage people from eating foods that aren’t good for them.”
Now that you are starting to see my way, your probably wondering, what are we going to do with the extra money from the taxes? Well I’ll tell you. We should use that money for the opposite of unhealthy, Healthy. All that extra money should go to Company’s that produce healthy foods. I would personally love to buy a bunch of Banana’s for only $1.50.
On the other hand some disagree. They say it’s their decision to eat sweets and that nobody should make decisions for them. Well, were not making decisions for you. Were just trying to look out for the welfare of Americans. And if you want, you can continue to buy sweets. It’s just going to cost you more. Just with the idea of taxing Cigarettes. Same concept. People buy less cigarettes because they cost so much.

Now, in order for this to work we need to tax junk food at about 50%. Don’t jump to conclusions. A bag of candy costs $2.00. If you do the math 50% tax on the bag of candy would make it cost $3.00. That would really make people start to think. Also an extra $1.00 per person would mean a lot of money for Companies that produce healthy foods. Thus, the prices of fruits, vegetables, and other healthy produces, would go down. It’s a win win. The cost of junk food increases, making some not buy as much non-nutritional foods. On the other hand, the cost of natural foods, decreases, making people want to buy more healthy foods. Again, a win win.

Now all this considered, Don’t you think that we should tax fat, so to speak? Well I certainly do. Now is the time to stop the obesity rates from increasing, stop people from eating to much sugar, and use that money for better things. Now is the time to tax fat.


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