I hope you don't let your dad see that message Foob.

Anyway, the health of it's citizens is very much in the interest of a good government. One of the purposes of taxation is to apply forces to the price of things that would otherwise only have 'martket forces'* on them. In the absense of good sense in the citizenry, it is designed to reduce demand for things that are bad for us, and encourage demand for things that are good for us. Financial enticements seem to be the only thing that works on us these days. Appeals to reason don't work if there isn't any. Hence, high taxes on cigarettes and alcolhol. Subsidising exercise, or applying higher taxes to unhealthy food is merely the logical extension of this, and my hope is that eventually we'll see the same logic applied to driving cars.

This might seem light 'too much control', and maybe it is, but the sad fact is that far too many people aren't prepared to exercise this control themselves. For some reason, the stupid and greedy have gotten hold of the idea that 'freedom' means 'I can do whatever I want'.

Since it's in no-one's interest to have a population filled with fat, slovenly, unproductive people in need of frequent and expensive health care, it is definitley the responsibility of good government to step in, ideally as transparently and unobtrusively as possible. Taxation suits this purpose well as the only thing we notice is a fluctuation in price. It's certainly less obtrusive than some guy in a black suit with an earpiece guarding your fridge.



*greed and stupidity.