Sin Tax

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Health and the Syntax of Sin Taxes


By John Taylor; 10 July, 2004


I have been trying hard lately to overcome what is making me an invalid
barely able to walk. I have the body of an aged codger and it is just
two years before my fiftieth birthday. In order to find the causes, I'm
devouring piles of books and magazines. My questions are: what are the
causes of obesity, migraine, arthritis and swollen ankles and knees?
More to the point, what are the causes that I can change?

I am not confining myself to theory. After a week or two I've already
made major changes to my diet. Without getting into tedious roommate
issues, let us say that I have let it be known that I have a policy of
dumping junk food wherever I find it in the home. Procrustean as it
sounds, it is I who ends up consuming most of this stuff most of the
time, so it is not unfair to forcibly reject this role of walking
trashcan that has been assigned me by the cravings of others. Garbage
cans do not suffer from obesity or clog up their arteries no matter what
you throw into them.

At the same time I have instituted policies of going out and buying food
myself once a day, of largely preparing it myself and restricting
purchases only to dietary items found scientifically to be of benefit to
the body. Just as with self improvement books, there seems to be an open
contract with the reader that if it is general and sounds impressive,
they will accept it. Health and dietary systems need to encourage us to
make difficult changes, but that does not mean I want to make them my
religion, and even in my religion I expect reasonableness and cogency.
In any case, I spend lots of time combing the internet to learn what
food to buy and what to avoid, not only for myself but because I need to
persuade a very reluctant, rebellious, skeptical significant other.

I had hoped to contact my doctor and go right onto Dr. Walford's special
"120 year lifespan" diet. This is the only diet that is not faddish,
that has half-decent scientific backing in the form of long term,
controlled studies. I’m no scientist, but that is what I hear in the
news. But reading what Walford says about the nature of nutrition I have
decided for at least the rest of the summer to concentrate just on
buying and eating the right foods, relearning how to cook, increasing
exercise, etc. Only after that break in time will I gradually slip into
his low calorie regime, which requires tight calculations so that you
take in very few calories without slipping into malnutrition.

According to Walford's findings, if you eat the right foods even without
counting calories your weight will drop and the appetite will naturally
fade. That is because you fill the stomach with low cal foods and the
body stops craving sugar, fat and other junk to fill it up. If you lose
weight this way, the main concern is limiting weight loss. Good food,
nuts, fruits, grains and vegetables, is high in bulk, low in calories,
and it changes your outlook as well as your cholesterol levels and blood
pressure. The high bulk, low calorie food fills the gut, satiates
appetite and starts to allow the brain to decide rather than fat. When
that process begins it no longer seems like a deprivation to be on a
reduced calorie diet. Your body may seem to a fatty to be half-starved,
but inside it does not feel like a deprivation. That is why the rats fed
a low-nutrient diet are more energetic, active and vital.

Now I'm getting greater skill and control, confidence in myself as cook,
dietician and person of will and decision I accept that I still need to
psych myself by reading and practicing many new skills right away.

By far the bitterest pill I have had to swallow is paying more money for
good food, especially eating out. For years I had rejected eating salads
in restaurants because they cost more. In Wendy's, for example, my
regular order was a shake and chili for less than four bucks. Salads
cost six or seven. This made no sense: if the ingredients, lettuce,
paper thin tomato slices, cost less for them to purchase why should I
pay more for it? These clowns are just exploiting the fact that rich
people know more about nutrition and are in a position to pay more for
it. This is unfair, exploitative and I hate it.

Paying more for cheaper food went against every fiber of my Scottish
being. My economic self told me never to pay more for something that has
less value, for what costs less when you buy and prepare it yourself.
That is how I reasoned before I lost the ability to run. Last month it
was like pulling teeth to start shelling out for that eight dollar salad
at my favorite fast food joints, Wendy's and Subway. Now that I have
done it a few times I am starting to get used to the pain. Plus, the
fact that I seem to be feeling better physically helps, even if it is
only a psychological illusion.

What finally persuaded me was thinking generally about the medical
system. The train of logic went like this: The reason that Tommy
Douglas's Medicare plan for socialized medicine caught on here and
remains Canada's biggest contribution despite waves of privatization and
the emergence of a multi-billion dollar drug and insurance lobby
corrupting governments left and right, is that it is a demonstrable fact
that though many purchases work best when you base them on parsimony,
picking the cheapest deal, it is in nobody's interest to do that when it
comes to health.

You do the right thing because it is the right thing, no matter what the
cost. You cannot afford to allow the briefest thought of money to
intercede. You go to the doctor and tell her what is wrong; if you think
for a second, "I'd be saving money by not reporting this problem, or
maybe by reporting it next year when I have more money," or, "Hmm, if I
have this symptom it will cost me less than that symptom." To think that
way is false economy. Almost always, the earlier you report and treat a
problem the better, the less the cost, the more likely a small ill will
be cured before it becomes mortal. If we think about anything but the
right thing to do everybody loses, we all pay more.

Ditto for the doctor. Economic motivations are wrong here too. They are
utterly out of place; they only interfere and confuse an already
difficult process of assessment, diagnosis and treatment. It is illegal
for doctors to treat themselves or family members for this very reason,
personal considerations always occlude an unbiased analysis. So
concentrated has wealth become in the past few decades that the entire
scientific and industrial system is corrupted, unable to make the
simplest diagnosis of social ills.

The more I think along these lines, though, the more I have to accept
that good governance has a positive obligation to make the right
decision into an economic decision. Why should I have to pay more to eat
the right thing, especially when good food actually costs less to
produce than bad food? I would not have to fight temptation, to wade
constantly against the stream, if it were cheaper and easier to eat
right. I'd do the right thing naturally.

There should be, that is, a tax on sugar, a heavy surcharge on fat,
donuts, desserts and other tempting but dangerous foods. No, not a minor
imposition like the tax on oil, not a small charge that still allows
people who have no real need for them to buy gas-guzzling trucks,
minivans and SUV's at a whim, I am talking about a sky high, crippling
sin tax. If science has found that sugary junk should only be eaten
rarely, if at all, we have an obligation at least to make it an
expensive option, a rare thing that you can only rarely afford. I hate
taxes as much as anybody, but I see no other way around this.

The price of food is a structural factor for health that would be fairly
easy to tweak. Another easily changed structural factor is the place you
choose to live in. If you live in a neighborhood where you have to walk
to do just about anything, it is now known that your chances against
heart disease and many other ills are much lower. In Italy, for
instance, heart disease is half that of the United States, land of super
sized portions, of driving everywhere and whole divisions without
sidewalks. The "walkability" of every house could be illustrated in big
charts wherever real estate is purchased. If that does not work, again,
a sin tax. Suburbs should have ten or twenty times higher property taxes
since the health and environmental hazards of forcing the inhabitants to
drive instead of walk are so much higher. We all pay for this folly, so
it is not unfair to ask the perps and victims to help compensate the
rest of society for their splendid isolation.

Next time I'll get back to the Open Secret, my plan for involving Baha'i
individuals and institutions in pushing aside public space for the sort
of healthier living we all need.



John Taylor
jet@linetap.com

Blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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