So, the government’s taxing soda to battle obesity.
So they say.
Last week, a family member and I were riding around town together and I listened to him describe the circumference of a corpulent woman’s thigh he’d seen in a meeting – eating a donut. The disgust with which he detailed this human creature was almost palpable. I may never have been overweight myself, but I’m no stranger to the insatiable force that drives me to want to use external things to mitigate my inner twister of torment. This demon must be dealt with every morning of my life. And I think it’s hard for people to understand that whether your go-to antidote is baked goods binges, bulimia, or bath salts – there’s always something behind the compulsion that’s not being addressed. Functional addicts and the super slim almost have it that much harder because everyone assumes they’re alright (since they look mostly normal). Thus, the real issues never get solved and their bad habits get validated because it earns them compliments like “you work so hard!” or “you look so good!” and meanwhile they’re trotting off after lunch to vomit or shoot a needle into their sclera. Who knows.
It’s easy to sit an point fingers.
Since your or my furtive flaws are like invisibility cloaks, it’s a simple target to mock the adipose fruits of bad habits – sprouted behind closed doors and worn publicly.
Unlike the rest of us, the fat wear their sins like adipose armor.
I get on my soapbox about things like these – not because I don’t think obesity is an epidemic. But much like any intrinsic disorder, I feel like it needs to be handled with at least a modicum of compassion – if for no other reason that this: if you really want a group of people to change (in this case, be less fat) – you have to make them want to become less fat and desire it like they desire delivery Chinese and Netflix-a-thons. And to make them desire it, they must be inspired – not merely threatened. We’re talking about a lifestyle change – not annoyance with a twenty cent inconvenience. So is taxing soda or fast food the answer?
Eh. It might make a tiny dent – but I dunno if it’s “the answer”. The poor will just find smarter workarounds and the rich never notice they’re paying more whether it’s the price rising on their coke or cocaine.
And many believe there’s not much of a middle class to consider – just the tiny top of the pyramid and the bottom. But speaking of pyramids – when it comes to the food pyramid (or whichever diet plan is currently considered the best) – perhaps something more personal would work. Like a health care tweak – mayhaps reduced insurance rates or something for those willing to follow a dietary program (Overeaters Anonymous? Jenny? Weight watchers?) and make ’em show proof of it . If there was that end goal for life long feeling eaters to bring down their weight to a healthy level, that might work.
From going through withdrawal from pain killing pharmaceuticals to surviving two 12 hour long kidney stone attacks afterward without any – I’ve used my mind to do some mindblowing stuff I never thought possible. To quote that one sexy guitar guy, we’re ‘bigger than our bodies give us credit for”. When I’m being douchey, I almost don’t even realize it. I’m just so stuck in my own head because of physical pain or anxiety that I don’t consider other people’s feelings. I can only assume people who take their blues with a biteful of Big Mac have the same thing going on in a different way when they don’t care about their cost to others. It’s the same self indulgence you see in anorexics.
And that won’t be solved by supercharging the cents. Instead – by fixing the inner ish, we can use our inner bigness to shrink our outer bigness to something more comfy and less expensive to live in. Boom. Less mass and fewer assholes (massholes?) taking up energy and money.
And that is what this is all about, right?
Not just an excuse for the government to take more money from everyone by solving everything but the actual issue?
Sidenote, I think it’s good fun when “Pigovian taxation” applies to being porky.
