Tax the fatties.

So they now want to tax unhealthy foods. Okay define unhealthy. High in sugar, high in fat, high in salt? High compared to what? I've already mentioned the joke that was Stilton having to be marked high in salt. Yeah I just sit down and eat a whole block of that.

But why do we need to tax these foods anyway? Weight and health issues. People eat these foods and get unhealthy and overweight. Okay now define healthy and overweight. Being able to do X push-ups, run Y metres? Weighing a certain proportion more then your height. Texas gives a good definition

Overweight refers to increased body weight in relation to height, when compared to some standard of acceptable or desirable weight.

Some standard?

Desirable weight standards are derived in a number of ways:

• By using a mathematical formula known as Body Mass Index (BMI), which represents weight levels associated with the lowest overall risk to health. Desirable BMI levels may vary with age.
• By using actual heights and weights measured and collected on people who are representative of the U.S. population by the National Center for Health Statistics. Other desirable weight tables have been created by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, based on their client populations.

Except just previous to that it states that BMI for athletes may register them as overweight due to increased muscle mass. What about the second point? Well all that does is collect data on the population it doesn't actually tell you what is or isn't a desirable weight somebody has to decide that based on um... er... eeny meeny miny mo? Ah but insurance tables, those are fine aren't they?

One look at the charts will make it obvious that there simply is no consensus as to what "ideal body weight" should be. In reality, it is actually different for every individual and is dependent on health, body fat content and distribution, musculature, age, activity, metabolism, and a host of other factors that are not simple to measure accurately.

So here we have one standard that may not be applicable to you another 'standard' that, well, isn't and a bunch of tables that don't give a consensus opinion.

Oops we have a problem; not to worry let's look at health.

You know those exercise weights, the ones you clamp around your waist and legs; people who weight more then you do those exercises all the time just by moving around. So wouldn't that make them fitter? Their muscles have to move that weight, their bones have to support it, and their heart has to pump that blood around. If it wasn't doing that they'd be unable to move.

Ah but it's that fat building up, all that cholesterol; want to know about that read this. So fat isn't necessarily bad, in fact we need it just as we need salt and sugar; in fact a deficiency could be worse then an excess. To paraphrase a character in "Fat" by Rob Grant -

"Those workers will secrete about 25g of salt, the RDA is 6g. So if they were forced to stick to the RDA they'd start to have health problems and could die."

We know this! We see it every year during the London Marathon; the runners have to replenish the liquids and minerals they sweat. Want to bet they're getting more then their RDA?


So let's see what we've got here - a tax on foods that have been defined as unhealthy due to the fact they contain substances that in excess may cause health problems such as increased weight which in fact may not be unhealthy (and for which we have no overall definition of anyway) or other health problems for which these substances may not in fact be the sole cause or major contributor towards.

Hell I'm convinced.