1. When a state regulates and provides for general health care, it eventually must regulate diet of it's people. Otherwise, the system goes bankrupt with folks that choose not to take care of their health, but continue to leverage the free health care. It is only natural and a matter of time. The other option would be to become more self-reliant. But that's tough with some many folks being dependent upon the state in one form or another. This is true of Europe and true of America.

2. Fat is somewhat the culprit because it tastes great and it's loaded with calories. The human body naturally like to accumulate fat for rainy starvation days. But without wars, without famine, most populations just over eat. So fat is 9 calories relative to 4 for carb or protein, and 7 calories for alcohol per gram respectively. Do the math. Fat eaters, and booze drinkers! LOL!

3. Fat does give good flavour. I'd pay for fat, or I'd buy land and raise it myself. Feed animals a lot of carbs, and they do the fat conversion and make food tasty! And salt, etc. aren't that bad if you maintain good levels (by sweating it out doing work and exercise!). Salt has only been an issue because our aging population has exhibited more risk due to hypertension. Salt is a contributor.

4. Healthy menu items at fast food places are oxymorons and designed for marketing purposes. They contribute fairly low margins, but with good supply chain management and ERP systems, big chains can minimize costs and this helps give them market a more PC personna rather being fingered as being at fault by a population that doesn't want to take personal responsibility.

5. I wouldn't want to be a business owner in a fast food place computing fat calories. I'd much prefer to own a bike shop where we had tubing sets and lugs and I brazed my own steel frames and good no-frills, hand made in America bikes starting at $250 (okay, so some parts made in Taiwan and China). But at least we'd make and assemble here. But fat chance of that happening here. Maybe someday, when I retire from the lucrative software engineering job... :-)

But I agree. Too much regs by too much gov't because people take too little personal responsibility. But heck, I'm a big clyde who loves McD!

Sorry, but we removed Darwin's answer when we started to improve our medicine. So, natural selection does NOT come into play here.

What does what I posted have to do with communism? Denmark is not a communist nation, in fact they are one of the most successful capitalist nations in the world. The creators of capitalism.

In fact, the "fat tax" is capitalism at work: Transferring the cost of health care related to obesity, to the consumer, who can then choose to eat healthier (And thereby less expensive) food.

We tried the "you are responsible for you" thing here in the US. It failed, then we got rid of the Articles of Confederation, and came up with our current document.

Even at the outset of the US, we have a community-centric attitude. We all participated in shared sacrifices. We got rid of it, and now we have what we have here.

Not to mention, Denmark is NOT the US. They have a completely different cultural attitude.

Three problems:
1) It's not enough money to change spending habits
2) It complicates already complicated tax code
3) Fat is the wrong component of food to worry about

If the real reason is to generate income, then raise existing taxes some small amount.

Because people (with the help of lots of advertising for cheap "food") are doing a very bad job of it themselves. It's not that different from why the government has business building roads and hiring police and fire fighters. Anyway, that's just a side question; the real question is whether we're going to do anything about the obesity epidemic or not.

Obesity costs America's medical system more than smoking does.

Until you wind up in the emergency room, being treated for a heart attack on the tax payer's dime...

Sorry, but I can't get behind this nanny law any more than I can any other nanny law, like helmets, seat belts, etc. The proper role of government is to protect people from others, not from themselves.

Sorry, got to dissagree with you but this isn't really the place to argue that so we'll have to agree to disagree. :)

I'm all for personal responsibility, but the problem with that in our current society is that we all end up footing the bill for health problems caused by those who choose to eat themselves sick. Until they're forced to pay for 100% of their own health care, it remains in our best economic interest to do whatever we can to curb that behavior on a large scale. Whether this sort of tactic is the best approach (or whether it's even effective) is another argument entirely, however.

No need to worry; if, as you suggest, there was a Darwinian solution to this problem, then we'd all be posting in a different forum because people weighing more than 200 lbs would be extremely rare. But Clydes and Athenas are getting more and more common, not less and less.

The fact that some bigger folks put more work into finding mates would be relevant if humans spent our entire lives producing offspring, like rabbits, but since most people in the world stop after a couple/few, the question isn't how much work it takes, but whether it happens at all. And, at the end of the day, we can see what's going on in the world: obesity is on the rise, and Darwin isn't preventing it.

This has only been an issue for the last 30-40 years or so. I don't really know if there is enough evidence to prove it one way or another. Natural selection doesn't really happen in one generation. Interestingly there is a study published from a researcher from Columbia University that just came out that said "a little extra cushion around the waist on a man is not a big deal to attractive women, as long as he's rich" Maybe I am wrong and natural selection will work in the other direction? ;);) Interestingly they actually came up with a formula. For every 10% increase in a man's Body Mass Index, his salary must increase by 2% in order to continue dating in the same arena. However, women who weigh more by two BMI units compensate with a year of extra education, rather than money. ;);)