The NY Fat Tax--hope you like water!

So the New York Fat Tax: it has its good points. But I know this is where people start screaming about their personal freedoms, yada yada yada. I'm all about personal freedoms when it comes to our basic civil rights, but (and I can say this as a bona fide baby with back) it's not right for people's personal freedom to eat themselves to death to infringe on EVERYONE financially--i.e., through the diseases and health problems obesity causes which eventually land the freedomlover in a hospital bed. Where I work, they actually implemented a semi-fat-tax by increasing the prices of the sugared drinks in the machine, and decreasing the prices of the diet drinks and water. Yes, people were pissed, and yes I was one of them. But, you can bet my cheap ass won't pay the extra 50 cents for a kidney-stone-causing Turkey Hill Iced Tea and will opt for the 75-cent diet version instead. And of course, there are many other cheapskates like myself.

But, it's another one of those gray areas--much like the debate about socialism vs. capitalism. How far do you take it? At what point in trying to act in people's best interests do you begin to deprive them of freedoms which are their birthright? Now we come full circle, back to the argument that it is unfortunately NOT people's birthright to eat themselves to death, myself included. We're like bad little toddlers that have to be disciplined, nutritionally. There's not nearly enough nutritional education in this country's schools, and we put McDonald's in school cafeterias and wonder why kids are fat. Portion sizes across the board are out of control as well. When going to your average restaurant, you can almost always guarantee cutting your serving size in half and taking it home. But if you're anything like me, you'll forget the other half is in the fridge and find it covered with something interesting but definitely not edible weeks later in the back of the fridge. What a waste! There are people starving all over the world, and Americans have to make mental notes while at restaurants to halve their serving sizes so they can fit in their jeans. What an astronomical and almost unfathomable difference. Makes you think.