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Time for a Sugar Tax or VAT on some foods

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Comments

  • chewmylegoff
    chewmylegoff Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 17 August 2015 at 7:20PM
    There is VAT on chocolate biscuits but you can still buy them for next to nothing. Making cheap processed rubbish 20% more expensive hasn't stopped people buying McDonalds.

    If you really want to change behaviour you have to make the thing you're trying to stop unaffordable. If jam donuts cost £100 each because there was a £99.50 tax on them then no one would buy them. Making them cost 60p instead of 50p just means you got a bit more tax.

    Of course given that it is possible to make donuts using sugar, flour and oil, you have to tax all of them £99.50 as well and pretty soon all you have left is lettuce. Lettuce is carcinogenic.

    In the end, you cannot save stupid people from themselves. Investment fraud continues to prosper for the same reasons. No matter how much you tell people "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" there will still be plenty of suckers prepared to hand over their life savings without doing any due diligence because some spiv promises them a 10% return.
  • cells
    cells Posts: 5,246 Forumite
    Sugar tax is a stupid idea for a lot of reasons one of which is that sugar is extremely cheap so adding 20% VAT to sugar will not result in people eating fish instead
  • cells
    cells Posts: 5,246 Forumite
    I think an effective way to stop people getting fat is for the NHS to give every household free digital scales (with long life batteries)

    I think that would stop a lot of people getting fat in the first place and help those dieting actually keep weight off
  • ukcarper
    ukcarper Posts: 17,337 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    cells wrote: »
    I think an effective way to stop people getting fat is for the NHS to give every household free digital scales (with long life batteries)

    I think that would stop a lot of people getting fat in the first place and help those dieting actually keep weight off
    I take it that's a joke.
  • cells
    cells Posts: 5,246 Forumite
    ukcarper wrote: »
    I take it that's a joke.


    No. Reserch shows that those who diet and manage to keep their weight off long term are those who keep constant track of their weight.

    Everyone should get into the habit of weighing themselves every morning. Its a hell of a lot easier to keep at a normal weight and do something about it when you are 2kg over than to not notice it and decide when you are 20kg over to do something

    would cost next to nothing and would slim down millions of people imo.
  • ukcarper
    ukcarper Posts: 17,337 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    cells wrote: »
    No. Reserch shows that those who diet and manage to keep their weight off long term are those who keep constant track of their weight.

    Everyone should get into the habit of weighing themselves every morning. Its a hell of a lot easier to keep at a normal weight and do something about it when you are 2kg over than to not notice it and decide when you are 20kg over to do something

    would cost next to nothing and would slim down millions of people imo.
    Your weight is not constant it varies over the day and by the day how on hell do you know if you are 2kg over weight. If people are overweight enough to effect their health they know it they may not do anything about it but they know.
  • remorseless
    remorseless Posts: 1,221 Forumite
    ooooh not the faaaaaaat tax!!!

    I am divided because I think it would transform more and more into a nanny-state but not addressing the underlying issue. Bad diet, lack of exercise, cheap nasty food.

    Maybe who is affected should pay a premium on their tax to offset the NHS.
  • chewmylegoff
    chewmylegoff Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    ooooh not the faaaaaaat tax!!!

    I am divided because I think it would transform more and more into a nanny-state but not addressing the underlying issue. Bad diet, lack of exercise, cheap nasty food.

    Maybe who is affected should pay a premium on their tax to offset the NHS.

    I doubt that most dangerously fat people whose health is seriously at risk as a result of their weight pay much direct tax.
  • remorseless
    remorseless Posts: 1,221 Forumite
    I doubt that most dangerously fat people whose health is seriously at risk as a result of their weight pay much direct tax.

    can always tax their benefits... isn't how the 'bedroom tax' was working? :p
  • cells
    cells Posts: 5,246 Forumite
    edited 17 August 2015 at 11:06PM
    ukcarper wrote: »
    Your weight is not constant it varies over the day and by the day how on hell do you know if you are 2kg over weight. If people are overweight enough to effect their health they know it they may not do anything about it but they know.

    Of course you will know if you are overweight but just trying to guage it by lookig in the mirror is a poor method

    I usually weigh 69-70kg in the mornings. I moved house about 6 months ago and misplaced my scales so had stopped weighing myself. Anyway I felt I had put on some weight but its hard to tell visually so I bought another scale just two weeks ago and I had gone up to 73kg. Since then I've been watching what I eat more and doing some more exercise and im back down to 71kg and ill get it to 70kg.

    so in my case it definitely works.
    it isn't a diet its just knowing what weight is healthy and if the scales show more than that in the morning during the rest of the day you think concisely about your food choices.

    I am confident it would help millions in the UK lose and keep off weight and all it costs is a fiver for a digital scale. Analogue ones not as effective.
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