[btcindivist]

For a country that is so weighed down by the health issues around obesity, it's quite weird taxes/incentives based on calorie per gram isn't anywhere in sight. The savings from not having to take care of so much sick people would be enormous.

It's clear from the situation that the free market choices are suboptimal. Who wants to suffer through most of their life and die early? Yet these choices are still made. If you can't educate, then tax fairly and force them to make the right choices.

[ams6110]

> Who wants to suffer through most of their life and die early?

Apparently the fat people. Otherwise they would change their eating habits.

Why do we want to force people to live some way they don't want to live? It won't work, and it will just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

[btcindivist]

I'm pretty sure taxing by calorie density would make things better. There's no cost in doing that, it would just shift people to eat less calorie dense food like fruits, vegetables and leafy greens.

The main problem is that the current laws, taxes and infrastructure are heavily optimized to produce calorie dense foods. Another is that people like some of those foods on a regular basis in their diet, so they might complain.

I would say this would cost more in political points than in real money.