June 12, 2012 • 37 mins
The concept of fighting unhealthy behavior like overeating by taxing unhealthy food has been around since 1994. But as the debate over a fat tax rages on in the U.S., Europe has begun to institute them and there's talk of taxing overweight people as well.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant
is taking a refreshing sip off of a low Craw
(00:23):
brand carbonated soda and um. Since he's doing that wearing
a plaid short sleep t shirt shirt shirt. Uh, and
I'm wearing jeans. That means that this is stuff you
should know. That's right. Yeah, that's the formula, the secret formula.
Jeans on you, plaid shirt on me, nothing from the
(00:44):
waist down on you. That's socks. Of course, it makes
the whole thing so much more unsettling. I think. Still
there's nothing. There's not much funnier than socks and shoes
on with no pants. Yeah, it's just a homerson. It's
always funny. He's nailed it, especially with his pointy little
(01:04):
brown shoes. The big road Ton Pubic Mountain. Then he
has he's awesome. Umuck, it's been a long time, hasn't it.
We we've been out of the office for two weeks.
Just so people know we're getting back into things, and
it's refreshing to do our to do something that we're
good at. Ye, yeah, it is some saying. It gives
(01:26):
me a sense of control. Um, I feel like we're
good at this, Chuck. We know what we're doing, except
for maybe the Union's one man. No. I mean it
was good. All the information was there, but like I
I've it sounded like I've had a transorbital lobotomy, like
just moments before we started, did you. We'll see, Um,
(01:48):
this one is going to be a good one. My friend,
remember the tipping episode. It's gonna make that look like poop. Um,
we're talking today, Chuck. As I know you know about
the possibility of a fat tax. That's right, and it's well,
well we'll get to exactly what it is in a second,
(02:10):
but um, let's talk about why you would even consider
taxing fat. It seems like, Chuck, there is an obesity
epidemic in the United States, and not just the United States,
but in the western world. We're not the only fatties,
although we are typically the fattiest of the fatties. Uh yeah,
oh yeah, well we're the best in everything by percentage.
(02:34):
I think there are more obest people in the States
than um elsewhere. Yes, but it is still a problem.
It's very prevalent everywhere. When you mean, I went to Japan,
she was, she was like, everyone in Japan is so thin.
Everyone is very thin, They're very small pieces. We went
and I was like, you sure when the last time
you were here? Um, So, yeah, it's it's everywhere. But
(02:55):
they would probably say, like, we're just fat now because
we're eating American foods. That is what they said, because
you know what, they're probably right, dude, they're McDonald's makes
our McDonald's look again like poop. Like they have the
this thing called the Mega muffin, and it's a an
egg McMuffin with sausage and like extra egg and it's
(03:19):
huge and it's probably the most delicious thing I've ever
eaten in my life. I'll eat a sausage McMuffin with
egg right now. And then, well, you can get an
egg McMuffin with sausage here in the States if you
know what to ask for. But it costs you like
six bucks, but it's worth it, that's true. But anyway, yes, um,
the double egg interests me though. Yeah, No, it is true,
Like it's six bucks easy. Yeah. Um, okay, So in
(03:43):
the United States, let's throw out some statistics because this
is where we live. And again, the United States is
the greatest country in the world when it comes to
obese people producing the obese um an. Obesity costs the
US an estimated hundred and fifty billion dollars a year
UH in healthcare costs. That's a significant amount of meatballs. Yeah,
(04:07):
of all medical costs of Medicare, costs are oh during
the last year of life or due to obesity. This
AT's significant. Yeah. I thought that was a weird statistic though,
wasn't it. Yeah, I thought it was a lot um.
That guy, that polster who you're quoting, he was definitely biased.
(04:28):
It seemed like which I know, but I'm saying, like
even still, he was like, here's this poll that we
just conducted, and here's how I feel about it, Mattie. Um,
so we've got a lot of money being put into
treating UH diseases that rise from UM obesity. A preventable disease. Well, yeah,
obesity is considered a chronic disease, which is something that
(04:50):
can be treated and prevented through behavior modification like shock therapy,
which costs far less than treating heart disease. That's point one. Um,
let's see, the costs are expected to rise. And um,
however you feel about Obamacare, take that off the table,
(05:11):
put it on the table, take it off the table
either way. Um, if we don't change the amount of
money we're putting into care for um, obesity related diseases,
those costs are gonna go up just because the sheer
number of obese people are expected to rise. There's something
like sevent of Americans are either overweight or obese. Yeah,
(05:35):
it is a lot, and it's I think more than
a third of Americans are obese, and obese is a
body mass index of thirty thirty ms per square meter, right,
And then they're kind of refining that so it's not
just weight anymore. It's the amount of fat you have
on your body. And apparently there's a move toward refining
(05:56):
that even further, which is how much fat do you
have on your upper body? Which is the really unhealthy
stuff out of post? Right, I know I can't gain
a pound below my waist. I think I'm like my dad.
I carried all between my my chin and my waistline
is there? Right? Oh? Yeah, I got skinny little legs.
I don't get like the big butt that some guys get.
(06:16):
You know, I've noticed since I've been running, my butt
has gone up and out a little bit, and I
guess that's what's supposed to be, but I don't like it. Man,
I'm self conscious about my bottom now. Um okay, so
the uh the percentage of obast people in the US,
chuck UM is supposed to go from about a third
(06:37):
right at now to forty. That's just not overweight, that's obesie.
That's creeping up to half the country. That's a lot.
It's nice to have something to shoot for. So there's
a lot of UM as a nation. There's a lot
of reasons that people would start talking king about instituting
(07:01):
a fat tax. And when we're talking about the fat text,
we're talking about this concept that was first UM introduced
by a Yale psychologist named Kelly D. Brown. Oh yeah,
the twinkie tax. I hate. Did they throw twinkie on
any everything? I always do anytime something has to do
with junk food, they throw twink cancer like the twinkie defense.
The word twinkie was never uttered during UM the trial. Yeah,
(07:24):
during the trial, it was all junk food. That was
a Harvey Milk thing, right, Yeah, it was uh yeah,
the Dan White trial it was no and he never
mentioned twinkie, but that was the press. They just put
Twinkie on anything they can't Uh yeah, he's he first
coined it. And this was back in the New York Times,
so it's not the newest idea to be floated. Um.
(07:47):
And there there's some different ways that people have suggested
that we go about this. He has a couple of proposals.
One is tax saying seven on unhealthy foods and then
use that venue to subsidize healthy foods to make it cheaper,
to make that cheaper less expensive. And the idea behind
that is what that people just buy unhealthy food because
(08:10):
it's cheaper because it traditionally is is that I wonder
if we would find out if that's the case. I
don't think that's the case. I don't know. I mean,
I think people buy those foods because they want to
buy that junk and eat it. I guess it depends
on what you're talking about though, Like if it's a
TV dinner, you're looking for dinner and that's super cheap, right,
So if you if they're healthier alternatives that are cheaper
(08:33):
than that, then maybe they would go with a healthier alternative.
But when you want an oreo, you want an oreo.
But I bet you could get one of them. The
little Healthy Choice meals for about the same as a
TV dinner. It was about the same price. I wonder.
I wonder though, also if proportion has to do with
it too. I think proportion control is a huge portion.
Portion proportion. Well, when you're comparing a healthy Choice to
(08:58):
a hungry man, it's proportion. But uh, and the other
thing is too though. I mean the Healthy Choice meals
and those those diet meals White Watchers meals. They are
lower in um, I guess, like fats and calories and
stuff like that, it's still be hard to argue that
they're healthy. Any kind of like package processed food like
that is inherently it's not like super healthy. I guess
(09:19):
you're right, but it's probably better than the hungry man. Well,
it's like the whole thing with um high freak toast
corn syrup like sugar. Refined sugar is a healthy comparison
to it, you know, like um, that whole throwback thing
that PEPSI did, right, Like that was supposed to be
better for you, but they used just to refined sugar
instead of high fruit toast corn syrup. So I wonder
if what you're saying then is that's along the same lines.
(09:42):
I guess, well, yeah, and that presents one of the
problems that we'll get to is how do you if
you're gonna do something like this, where do you draw
the line and how do you attack this? Is it
just sweets and fatty foods? Or you know, a pint
of Ben and Jerry's ice cream is made with really
healthy natural ingredients, but it's full of fat and calor
eas whereas a healthy choice quote unquote is processed and
(10:04):
loaded with preservatives, but it's lower in calorie, so it's hinky.
You present a sticky conunder and how they're going to
figure this out if it if it ever goes through um.
So that was the first proposal by Brown l Um
basically seven percent tax used that the revenue to fund
or subsidize healthier stuff, right, yeah, and they can actually
(10:24):
I don't know how they did this, but Oxford University
actually put a number of value on how many lives
a year that could save um, and they claim that
a seventeen point five percent value added tax um could
save up to thirty lives a year. And I guess
that's probably just in England. I'm imagining, right, I believe.
(10:45):
So there's like England's all over this as well. It's
a U S and England. Well, Europe is kind of
moving towards this. But yeah, the studies that we came
across seem to be mostly British in origin. They love
their studies every day they do. So that's one one proposal. Um,
what's the second one? Well, the second one was less aggressive.
(11:05):
It was basically just um tax a lesser amount onto
unhealthy food and then funnel that into public education. And
brown else said that would probably be easier to get
pushed through legislatively, but it would have less of an effect. Yeah,
I mean, if you're gonna do this, and I mean
(11:27):
I don't even know if it's a good idea or not.
I'd rather see cheaper healthy food than some stupid campaign,
you know. Yeah, the whole awareness campaign. I have doubts
about the effectiveness of those things. Well, they have an
obesity awareness campaign going on, and it's like they're using
these poor fat kids as models, and it's like, what
school do you go to? You have to be private
tutored now because you're literally the poster child for obesity,
(11:51):
you know. Um. So, you were saying that the Brits
came up with the the the idea of doing a
seventeen point five value added team point five percent value
added tacks. Right, value added taxes Basically like every time
UM raw material comes into the manufacturing plant, there's a
tax on that. UM. When the manufacturer finishes the final product,
(12:14):
sends it to a exporter, there's a tax on that.
Exporter gives it to a distributor, there's a tax on that.
And ultimately all these taxes build up and are passed
on to the consumer, right um. And then the savings
aren't passed on that the taxes to the extra payment. Um.
So the these these Brits who studied that found that
if you if you did that seventeen point five percent
(12:36):
tax and you just did it on foods with saturated fat,
that it could actually be counterproductive. They modeled it and
they found that it would drive people to other foods
and uh yeah like uh and and would have even
more severe health consequences, right, um. And then what's more,
(12:58):
here's a big problem too. Um. It would increase food
costs by about three two. So here's here's here's where
we reach a really So if you're a liberal, right,
and you're like, no, we need to we need to
look out for people. These people don't understand the the
the consequences of their eating habits, and their diet habits
are passing me along to their children. We're all gonna
(13:20):
die at age fifty. Um, So we need this kind
of tax. And somebody goes, uh, it's it's regressive, so
it's unfairly taxing the poor, and every liberal just goes
forget it, just forget it all, never get behind it.
And that's part of the problem because you know, the
poor tend to spend a larger percentage of their income
on food, so if you start taxing food, it's going
(13:42):
to unfairly hit the poor harder than anybody else. So
they found the three point two for that, um for
that one that's just saturated that and they did too
other models too. Yeah, the one um where they actually
assign a score rating to your food. Um. And don't
ask me about the stands for but the ssc G
three D score. I looked, I couldn't find what it
(14:04):
stands for super secret. Let's just call it that the
super secret score. UM. So that basically they're gonna rate
foods based on UM eight nutrients and a higher score
is bad if you're if you're a plus eight, then
you're going to get taxed more. And that would save lives.
I guess is that a year? Yeah? And then UM
(14:26):
increase four percent, so even higher increase in food costs, right,
but it saves lives rather than having more severe negative
consequences UM. And it's it hits that sweet spot that
you're looking for the science, right, So, like you could
run anything conceivably through this algorithm. Doesn't it's blind to
whether it's lean cuisine or ho hose. It's gonna spit
(14:50):
out a score, and depending on the score, you get
taxed or not. That makes a little more sense. It
does still though four percent increase in UM food UH costs,
that's significant, it is UH. And then the third one
was where basically it was they spread the tax among
a bunch of different foods, almost half of all foods.
(15:11):
I don't know, I don't understand. Yeah, I didn't get
this one, okay, so um, but what we did. What
they found was that it saves lives, but it increases
taxes by about four point six percent. So if you're
an anglophile and you are into studies and you like
choosing multiply um, you would probably go with number two.
I think it makes the most sense, and it should
(15:36):
everyone else. I was just describing ourselves. Um. Actually, in
Britain they already do this on some things like ice
cream and potato chips they mentioned in here, UM already
have a value out of tacks. And in some states,
and no, George is not one of them, they tax
um small taxes on soft drinks and things like that. See.
I don't know if that's true, because um, I found
(15:57):
this one. Uh, this one article about Redmond, California, where
they're talking about adding a one cent per ounce soda
tax and it says that they would be the first
city in the country to actually push it through. Yeah,
well maybe it does. Say California and Maine in Maryland
had fat taxes UM approved and then repealed. So yeah,
(16:20):
first sitting in the nation to Levey attack specifically targeting
soda and sugar laden beverage is interesting. So, but if
this goes through, it's coming up pretty soon, I guess
in November. But if it goes through, there's that one
problem again where it's a regressive tax because it's a
fixed amount. It's one cent per ounce, and because of that,
(16:43):
the cheaper the value of an ounce of soda, the
more percentage you're gonna pay in taxes. Right, So let's
say you pay a dollar for your generic store brand
two Leader, that's sixty six or sixty seven ounces, you're
gonna pay at a cent parounce, you're gonna pay an
extra sixty seven cents, which is more costs. Yeah, it's
(17:06):
almost double what you were paying before. And the people
who are buying that dollar store brand two Leader are
probably people who can afford the dollar, right exactly. Now,
if you do a twelve pack or something like that, um,
and it's a hundred and forty four ounces, but a
twelve packs already like six bucks, that's only an extra
dollar forty four. That's only like or something like that
(17:28):
added tax rather than sixties. So that's why they say
regressive taxes are usually unfairly burdening to the poor. Yeah,
that makes sense. I see Uh, well, I see it
all the time. Let's just say that you do. I
used to work in in the convenience store, and so
I had a a good eye on who was buying
(17:49):
what and what kind of snacks people ate and stuff
like that. I was amazed to find when I worked in, um,
a gas station, that people cho white clay. Excuse me,
they chew white clay. I don't know what that means.
You've not seen white clay. Look around next time you're
in a gas shitch, and especially out in the sticks,
there'll be a little cell of fame bag with like
(18:12):
the little paper hanger, you know, like you buy like
gummy worms or whatever in like that. But um, it's
a food. It is not a food item. It's clay,
and people chew it. Apparently it's um it's like a
folk tradition among pregnant women to chew clay. But people
have like this kind of craving for it as well,
(18:33):
and they sell this in convenient story. I never knew that. Yeah,
that one always, that's a good one. I'm gonna be
in the lookout now. Um. So we've talked about all
the reasons why you should do this, right, Yes, it
seems like this would have all been pushed through if
there weren't some sort of opposition to the concept of
(18:53):
fat taxes like Tony Blair Oh yeah, for instance, in
two thousand four he called that a sign of a
nanny state, and basically that kind of sums it um.
Critics will argue that, you know, this is like the
government once again legislating something in you're a personal decision
(19:16):
you want to make, which is, you know what if
I want to eat twinkies and get fat and dive
a heart attack at forty it's my right because I
love those twinkies. It makes a really good case like
who who is the government to tell you you shouldn't write? Um.
There is a really good argument on the other side
that often comes from the same side, though, which is,
(19:38):
m if we as a society have to pay for
your health care, then yeah, you we do have a
stake in telling you, you know, you can't eat that twinkie,
And yeah, we agree. We can't tell you not to
eat that twinkie, but we can make you think twice
about it by raising the price of it. Well, and
(19:59):
they're in brings up the third model, which is not
to tax food but too um make people pay more
for something like insurance if they're obese. The the text
the person and not the item. Yeah, which is probably
the more diabolical model of the of the others. Uh yeah,
(20:24):
but it's also like I get that, but it's also
at least it singles out the the problem. Like although
some people might say the problem is the existence of
the twinkie, but they don't. But but the critics will
say no. But you know what, if you're super healthy
and you like to indulge the twinkie every now and then,
there is nothing wrong with the existence of twinkies. Check
that was hypothetical, right, you know what I'm saying. But
(20:46):
like you can't like if you love you this tax
on junk food and I'm a marathon runner that once
a week, I love my my Reese's cup. Why should
I have to pay more money on that because a
larger person eats some five times a day. See. I
disagree with that though, because think about it, man, Like,
like who's really paying for that that extra tax? Todd
(21:08):
the larger person who eats them any times a day,
or you who eats them once a week. It's like,
buck up and pay the extra forty cents and shut up.
We're trying to deal with something over here. Go run
your marathon. That that's what I have to say to
that person. Um, as far as it goes within the
obese person, who when you are faced with that idea
(21:30):
of having to pay more for that Reese's, there's no
sweet spot. As bad as economists want to be able
to say, this is the point where everyone will stop
paying for Reese's and stop eating them. It's the same
with gas. No one has any idea. You can take
the average of all this, but it's really different for everybody.
(21:53):
So that's one of the big challenges is how much
do you raise? UM. So, if you take a way
the the idea that that's going to change behavior, it
might not. It might just mean that people are going
to have to shell out more money, which sucks. Um. Well,
what happened with smoking? Did people? Well, that is less
when they started taxing the cred out of that did
(22:14):
a really good example of how you can successfully tax
unhealthy stuff um and change people's behavior. So that it
did work. But they think about what a pack of
cigarettes cost today compared to ten years ago. It's like
I think in in say New York, it's probably about
(22:35):
twelve times more than before. Um, I know, like almost
overnight after the tobacco settlement was settled, tobacco prices doubled
just from the added tax. But uh, tobacco use has
gone down, like went down like from like two seven
(22:55):
due to the price, or they believe it's due to
the price, probably also due to public education, but really
they were educating the public before than anyway. So yes,
they think that it has to do with the the
fact that the tobacco Settlement led to just ridiculously higher
taxes and still continues to. So you can say that
there's a model that Okay, if you just keep adding
(23:18):
more and more and more money in the form of
attacks to this item, eventually everybody's going to fall off, right,
you will reach that point where no one will pay
that any longer. What we were talking about, where where
you're actually taxing the consumer. That's different. That's saying I'm
whether you eat terribly or not until you get down
(23:42):
to a certain what body mass index or whatever. Um,
you have to pay more for health insurance. I almost
feel like it should be the other way around, like
car insurance, like you get breaks if you're a good driver,
like maybe if set up in centiplans, if you lose weight,
then you get lower costs, right, be nice to lower
(24:03):
costs for a change, it would be, But it's ultimately
the same thing. It's just a different way of looking
at it. The people who aren't losing weight or paying
they're paying more than other people. But I see what
you're saying. It's starting out at level and then um,
people who are better at something get or who do
well pay less. Yeah, it's it seems fair. There's some problems,
so like how do you how do you keep track
(24:25):
of that, keep track of the individual? Yeah? And yeah,
I mean how often can do you have to Like,
if you lose a significant amount of weight, do you
go in and say, hey, I need a letter from
you saying like I can get a reduction in my
insurance now because I've hit this goal or whatever. You know,
run it through your doctor and you know, have a
(24:46):
have a standardized form where they take certain measurements and
if you want to, if you want to apply and
get the cheaper rates, then it's up to you to
get those sheets filled out and turn them in every
six months. I think you may have just all the
big problem that makes sense to me. Well, um, in
Japan they're doing something like that. It's called the Matabo
(25:06):
program uh where every year everybody goes in for an
annual check up anyway, and they do it through their employer.
They added some sort of like body mass index measurement
now too. You know, there's like for the person there's
no financial steak in losing weight or getting a target weight, um,
but there's a lot of societal and peer pressure from
(25:28):
their employer who's getting pressured from their city or county
or town which is getting hit financially for for X
number of people that are not losing weight. Um. So
they're using like this societal pressure to pressure people because
the Japanese no shame. And we'll see that was that
would work for me because I'm overweight. And if I
(25:51):
guarantee you if every time they rang up something, if
a a little speaker at the regishore went fat tax,
fat tax, like stop buying those things or I would
you know, find out a way to get them on
the black market. Well, I think a lot of people
wouldn't for sure. Yeah, that would shame me that that's
what they should do. I'm amending my previous statement, they
(26:12):
should have a computer voice that yells out fat decks
every time you buy something fat. Why not just combine
both of those. Let's combine boat, because then I think
you have a powerhouse. Mother. And this is coming from
the guy it's like thirty pounds overweight. Sometimes we have
the best ideas. I can tell you, though, seeing um
like on a um like a restaurant's menu board, seeing
the calories next to it, that definitely has an effect
(26:34):
on my behavior for sure. Ah apparently anyway, it's not
like but seeing it, like, yeah, that's really nine calories.
I don't feel like that right now. Yeah, I guess,
so it doesn't for me. I guess I'm never fooling
myself into thinking that that fried chicken doesn't have that
many calories, but maybe seeing it, Yeah, I get you. Yeah,
(26:57):
I guess if I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah,
fried chicken has that many lari But you think about
it if you see it. Yeah, Okay, So what do
what do Americans sink? If you believe this pole One
in three believed that obese people should pay more taxes
than healthy weight people, and this is conducted by the
Phalanx Investment Partners LLC. Uh and uh, boy, he's got
(27:20):
a lot of he asked a lot of questions in here,
he's got a lot of stats. Um, he does find
an interesting and I two that, uh, the obese could
garner support by Americans where overweight. So what that means
is thirty of overweight people or even saying yes they
(27:42):
should be tax or they should pay more for health care.
It makes he used the terrible, terrible analogy, Um, should
we allow short sighted or nearsighted people to become lion tamers?
And he's he's basically impairing that. But that kind of
um brings up a larger question like is this habit?
(28:06):
Is it just poor habits and poor eating behavior eating patterns?
And if so, then yeah, this guy can make a
pretty good case that, yeah, we need to break people's
bad eating habits, especially if they're passing them along to
their kids. Well. Interestingly, younger people responded generally uh more
(28:27):
in favor of taxing food more than older adults, and
people of higher income responded more positively to a fat
tax quote unquote yeah then obviously people with a lower income,
So yeah, wholesome weight terrible that I didn't mean that
like that. So this is all kind of theoretical right here.
(28:48):
I mean, what, Richmond, California might have a one sense
soda tax, but they'd be the only city with that.
Other places have tried at New York tried the same thing, um,
but apparently the soda come Benese shouted it down as
a um naked money grab, cleverly disguised as a health policy.
(29:08):
That's sad. It sucks from lobbyists get their meat hooks
and stuff, um and things like money grab. But if
you go to Hungary or Denmark, hungry is it's awesome
that they have a fat tax because of the country's name.
But um, if you go to Hungary, your Denmark, um,
there are fat taxes instituted there. Hungry has one that's
(29:30):
like a flat thirty point thirty seven euro tax um
on anything that's unhealthy. And I'm not quite sure what
the parameters are, but basically dunk food what we consider here.
And then Denmark just instituted something to where um they
tax saturated fats in um foods to the tune of
(29:55):
like sixteen kroner a kilogram, which comes out to be
like a dollar twenty nine a pound and then divide
it up and they take into account not just what
ends up in the end result of the fat, but
how much fat is also put in and maybe lost
along the way. Interesting, So they're really going after it. Yeah,
I like. I like the companies that incentivized, like our
own Discovery Channel will pay for half of your stomach
(30:18):
stapling gym membership. Uh, which is great, Like make a
little cheaper to join the gym. Can't make you go
to the gym, but you feel like a sucker when
you're paying to go to the gym and don't go
to the gym. I forgot that they'll do that. I
need to take them up on that. Oh yeah, dude,
it's once you just missed the deadline. But it's a
quarter your gym membership for you any me? Really? Yeah, wow,
(30:44):
that's great. I totally forgot about that. And it's not
the most money in the world, but a few shekels
makes you feel good. Yeah. I will definitely take them
up and thank you for reminding me each other. Well,
next time my reminder pops up, I'll remind you. How
about that, I'll go start it today. Um let's see.
But yes, please do remind me, just because it will
make me feel good that you remember. Um, I guess
(31:06):
that's about it. Bat taxes, they're all over the place
in Europe. They're spreading their their way west. Yeah. Maybe
let's see. If you want to learn more about the
proposals for the fat tax, you can type in fat
tax and the search part at how stuff works dot com.
That will bring up an article written by Jeopardy winner
Jacob Silverman. Yeah, Jacob, I watched all three of those shows.
(31:28):
He won twice. He won three times before. Right, Well,
he's coming back. They had to suspend for like they do,
like the tournament or something. Huh, so he'll be back
at some point to continue his run. That is awesome. Yeah,
and I never even knew the guy, but um, he
was really nice to me when I first got hired, Like,
uh we he emailed me a bunch and kind of
(31:48):
like helped me out early on. And then I saw
him on tvails Like so that's what Jacob Silverman woks like,
Oh you never saw him high. I never even saw him.
Oh yeah, he was a neat guy. Um yeah, we'll congret.
Listen to Jacob. Also, if you want to learn about
b D d Um. You can type in into the
search bar and that will bring up an article by M. E.
E UM. And I said searchbar in there somewhere, which
(32:12):
means it's time for listener mail. So Chuck, sorry, I
know that normally we should be doing listener mail here,
but let's let's tell everybody something, okay, So um iTunes
it's cool enough to say, hey, guys, what entertainment podcast
is your favorite entertainment you said? They put in quotes, um,
(32:34):
and uh they there's us. There's competition. Stiff dude, US,
Ted Talks, Discovery News, Um, Freakonomics, Radio Lab, Radio Lab Dude.
We're up against Radio Lab right now? Um? Is that
all of them? I don't want to leave anybody out.
Very great podcast I can't remember, but yeah, we're up
(32:57):
against some heavy hitters, so we are so um. They
created a poll on the iTunes Facebook page. So you
can go to iTunes on Facebook and if you look
on their wall and go down, UM, let's see I
don't know a few posts. You're gonna see that that
you know, what entertainment podcasts do you like the most? Right?
(33:18):
You can go vote for us if you want. Indeed,
that would be very nice. We think that would be
sweet if you did. If not, it's cool. We you're
listening anyway, We know you like us, and we won't
extort anything from you. Um, but if you're having trouble
finding it, here's the U R l H T T
P S colon slash slash www dot facebook dot com.
(33:41):
You should probably go get a pain. Wait is that
in the oral okay slash questions? That's plural slash one
zero one five one zero one five zero seven one
two four five eight zero three slash. That's right, And
(34:06):
you can go vote for us if you want to
vote for us. You can also go vote for Ted Talk.
You can vote for whoever you want. But we just
think it was a nice thing that they did, and
we'd about to be featured and oh yeah we left
that part out. Whoever wins gets featured on the iTunes
home page on June. Yeah. Anyway, good check it out
and if you're if you're unfamiliar with iTunes, check that
(34:28):
out too. Um, Josh, I'm gonna call this uh pediatrician.
Uh follow up with Marinol. Remember in our Medical Marijuana podcast,
we talked about the synthetic pill Marin all that you
can get a prescription for guys. I'm a huge fan,
and I even followed and said hi to Josh once
(34:48):
in Macy's Atlenox Malling. Oh yeah, yes, yes, you know
this guy. I remember that guy. Yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy the doctor.
I didn't realize Jimmy was a pediatrician. He is. By
the way, I had a fan encounter at uh the
grocery store without my tooth in the other day, to
embarrassing No, I like, I don't think you noticed, but
(35:10):
I think I came across as odd because I was
acting real funny because I didn't have my tooth then
I didn't want to smile real big, so I was
kinda like, nice to meet you. Anyway. I'm a huge
fan from Jimmy, and I was particularly interested in Chuck's
hesitancy and saying he had taken a Mariano pilled before,
(35:31):
since it's a legitimate prescription drug. H While one doesn't
normally associate medical marijuana with the under eighteen year old crowd,
the use of marianal is not uncommon. Actually in our
pediatric oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy, and we use it as
a second or third line of anti nasea drug. However,
in children who are unresponsive to those medications, marian All
(35:52):
is safe and awful, highly effective alternative. That being said,
you'd be surprised at the number of parents who are
hesitant or who even blatantly refused to allow their child
to take mayor and all because of the stigma associated
with it being quote from marijuana. Uh. This normally leads
into a conversation describing the fact that many of our
medicines are created based off of street drugs. Like you
(36:14):
guys mentioned the derivation of the very commonly used morphine
from heroin. I'd say fifty to sixty in the time
we can convince the parent to allow us to help
their child. However, again, it's certainly not uncommon for them
to refuse. It's incredibly frustrating, let me tell you, especially
when a child is clearly suffering because of their parents hardheadedness.
(36:35):
But we ultimately have to respect their opinions and their wishes. UH.
Doctors who house he doesn't respect anybody's opinions or wishes.
He just hammers through the best treatment he can think of.
I just thought you guys may find that aspect of
the social stigma associated with mayor and all. Uh interesting,
thanks for doing the topic. It's when that comes up
frequently in my circles, and that is Dr Jimmy. Thanks
(36:58):
Dr Jimmy. I totally we remember you. That was that.
That was nice. That made my day that one time. UM.
Umi was very impressed. Yeah, and uh, let's see, UM,
if you have an opinion on the fat attacks, I'm
sure there are plenty. I'm pretty sure we would get
them even without asking, but let's go ahead and ask.
(37:20):
Make sure everybody feels comfortable telling us what they think. UM,
be nice, but we want to hear about it. You
can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
UM We're on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff
you should Know, and you can email us at stuff
Podcasts at Discovery dot com for more on this and
(37:44):
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works dot com.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant
is taking a refreshing sip off of a low Craw
(00:23):
brand carbonated soda and um. Since he's doing that wearing
a plaid short sleep t shirt shirt shirt. Uh, and
I'm wearing jeans. That means that this is stuff you
should know. That's right. Yeah, that's the formula, the secret formula.
Jeans on you, plaid shirt on me, nothing from the
(00:44):
waist down on you. That's socks. Of course, it makes
the whole thing so much more unsettling. I think. Still
there's nothing. There's not much funnier than socks and shoes
on with no pants. Yeah, it's just a homerson. It's
always funny. He's nailed it, especially with his pointy little
(01:04):
brown shoes. The big road Ton Pubic Mountain. Then he
has he's awesome. Umuck, it's been a long time, hasn't it.
We we've been out of the office for two weeks.
Just so people know we're getting back into things, and
it's refreshing to do our to do something that we're
good at. Ye, yeah, it is some saying. It gives
(01:26):
me a sense of control. Um, I feel like we're
good at this, Chuck. We know what we're doing, except
for maybe the Union's one man. No. I mean it
was good. All the information was there, but like I
I've it sounded like I've had a transorbital lobotomy, like
just moments before we started, did you. We'll see, Um,
(01:48):
this one is going to be a good one. My friend,
remember the tipping episode. It's gonna make that look like poop. Um,
we're talking today, Chuck. As I know you know about
the possibility of a fat tax. That's right, and it's well,
well we'll get to exactly what it is in a second,
(02:10):
but um, let's talk about why you would even consider
taxing fat. It seems like, Chuck, there is an obesity
epidemic in the United States, and not just the United States,
but in the western world. We're not the only fatties,
although we are typically the fattiest of the fatties. Uh yeah,
oh yeah, well we're the best in everything by percentage.
(02:34):
I think there are more obest people in the States
than um elsewhere. Yes, but it is still a problem.
It's very prevalent everywhere. When you mean, I went to Japan,
she was, she was like, everyone in Japan is so thin.
Everyone is very thin, They're very small pieces. We went
and I was like, you sure when the last time
you were here? Um, So, yeah, it's it's everywhere. But
(02:55):
they would probably say, like, we're just fat now because
we're eating American foods. That is what they said, because
you know what, they're probably right, dude, they're McDonald's makes
our McDonald's look again like poop. Like they have the
this thing called the Mega muffin, and it's a an
egg McMuffin with sausage and like extra egg and it's
(03:19):
huge and it's probably the most delicious thing I've ever
eaten in my life. I'll eat a sausage McMuffin with
egg right now. And then, well, you can get an
egg McMuffin with sausage here in the States if you
know what to ask for. But it costs you like
six bucks, but it's worth it, that's true. But anyway, yes, um,
the double egg interests me though. Yeah, No, it is true,
Like it's six bucks easy. Yeah. Um, okay, So in
(03:43):
the United States, let's throw out some statistics because this
is where we live. And again, the United States is
the greatest country in the world when it comes to
obese people producing the obese um an. Obesity costs the
US an estimated hundred and fifty billion dollars a year
UH in healthcare costs. That's a significant amount of meatballs. Yeah,
(04:07):
of all medical costs of Medicare, costs are oh during
the last year of life or due to obesity. This
AT's significant. Yeah. I thought that was a weird statistic though,
wasn't it. Yeah, I thought it was a lot um.
That guy, that polster who you're quoting, he was definitely biased.
(04:28):
It seemed like which I know, but I'm saying, like
even still, he was like, here's this poll that we
just conducted, and here's how I feel about it, Mattie. Um,
so we've got a lot of money being put into
treating UH diseases that rise from UM obesity. A preventable disease. Well, yeah,
obesity is considered a chronic disease, which is something that
(04:50):
can be treated and prevented through behavior modification like shock therapy,
which costs far less than treating heart disease. That's point one. Um,
let's see, the costs are expected to rise. And um,
however you feel about Obamacare, take that off the table,
(05:11):
put it on the table, take it off the table
either way. Um, if we don't change the amount of
money we're putting into care for um, obesity related diseases,
those costs are gonna go up just because the sheer
number of obese people are expected to rise. There's something
like sevent of Americans are either overweight or obese. Yeah,
(05:35):
it is a lot, and it's I think more than
a third of Americans are obese, and obese is a
body mass index of thirty thirty ms per square meter, right,
And then they're kind of refining that so it's not
just weight anymore. It's the amount of fat you have
on your body. And apparently there's a move toward refining
(05:56):
that even further, which is how much fat do you
have on your upper body? Which is the really unhealthy
stuff out of post? Right, I know I can't gain
a pound below my waist. I think I'm like my dad.
I carried all between my my chin and my waistline
is there? Right? Oh? Yeah, I got skinny little legs.
I don't get like the big butt that some guys get.
(06:16):
You know, I've noticed since I've been running, my butt
has gone up and out a little bit, and I
guess that's what's supposed to be, but I don't like it. Man,
I'm self conscious about my bottom now. Um okay, so
the uh the percentage of obast people in the US,
chuck UM is supposed to go from about a third
(06:37):
right at now to forty. That's just not overweight, that's obesie.
That's creeping up to half the country. That's a lot.
It's nice to have something to shoot for. So there's
a lot of UM as a nation. There's a lot
of reasons that people would start talking king about instituting
(07:01):
a fat tax. And when we're talking about the fat text,
we're talking about this concept that was first UM introduced
by a Yale psychologist named Kelly D. Brown. Oh yeah,
the twinkie tax. I hate. Did they throw twinkie on
any everything? I always do anytime something has to do
with junk food, they throw twink cancer like the twinkie defense.
The word twinkie was never uttered during UM the trial. Yeah,
(07:24):
during the trial, it was all junk food. That was
a Harvey Milk thing, right, Yeah, it was uh yeah,
the Dan White trial it was no and he never
mentioned twinkie, but that was the press. They just put
Twinkie on anything they can't Uh yeah, he's he first
coined it. And this was back in the New York Times,
so it's not the newest idea to be floated. Um.
(07:47):
And there there's some different ways that people have suggested
that we go about this. He has a couple of proposals.
One is tax saying seven on unhealthy foods and then
use that venue to subsidize healthy foods to make it cheaper,
to make that cheaper less expensive. And the idea behind
that is what that people just buy unhealthy food because
(08:10):
it's cheaper because it traditionally is is that I wonder
if we would find out if that's the case. I
don't think that's the case. I don't know. I mean,
I think people buy those foods because they want to
buy that junk and eat it. I guess it depends
on what you're talking about though, Like if it's a
TV dinner, you're looking for dinner and that's super cheap, right,
So if you if they're healthier alternatives that are cheaper
(08:33):
than that, then maybe they would go with a healthier alternative.
But when you want an oreo, you want an oreo.
But I bet you could get one of them. The
little Healthy Choice meals for about the same as a
TV dinner. It was about the same price. I wonder.
I wonder though, also if proportion has to do with
it too. I think proportion control is a huge portion.
Portion proportion. Well, when you're comparing a healthy Choice to
(08:58):
a hungry man, it's proportion. But uh, and the other
thing is too though. I mean the Healthy Choice meals
and those those diet meals White Watchers meals. They are
lower in um, I guess, like fats and calories and
stuff like that, it's still be hard to argue that
they're healthy. Any kind of like package processed food like
that is inherently it's not like super healthy. I guess
(09:19):
you're right, but it's probably better than the hungry man. Well,
it's like the whole thing with um high freak toast
corn syrup like sugar. Refined sugar is a healthy comparison
to it, you know, like um, that whole throwback thing
that PEPSI did, right, Like that was supposed to be
better for you, but they used just to refined sugar
instead of high fruit toast corn syrup. So I wonder
if what you're saying then is that's along the same lines.
(09:42):
I guess, well, yeah, and that presents one of the
problems that we'll get to is how do you if
you're gonna do something like this, where do you draw
the line and how do you attack this? Is it
just sweets and fatty foods? Or you know, a pint
of Ben and Jerry's ice cream is made with really
healthy natural ingredients, but it's full of fat and calor
eas whereas a healthy choice quote unquote is processed and
(10:04):
loaded with preservatives, but it's lower in calorie, so it's hinky.
You present a sticky conunder and how they're going to
figure this out if it if it ever goes through um.
So that was the first proposal by Brown l Um
basically seven percent tax used that the revenue to fund
or subsidize healthier stuff, right, yeah, and they can actually
(10:24):
I don't know how they did this, but Oxford University
actually put a number of value on how many lives
a year that could save um, and they claim that
a seventeen point five percent value added tax um could
save up to thirty lives a year. And I guess
that's probably just in England. I'm imagining, right, I believe.
(10:45):
So there's like England's all over this as well. It's
a U S and England. Well, Europe is kind of
moving towards this. But yeah, the studies that we came
across seem to be mostly British in origin. They love
their studies every day they do. So that's one one proposal. Um,
what's the second one? Well, the second one was less aggressive.
(11:05):
It was basically just um tax a lesser amount onto
unhealthy food and then funnel that into public education. And
brown else said that would probably be easier to get
pushed through legislatively, but it would have less of an effect. Yeah,
I mean, if you're gonna do this, and I mean
(11:27):
I don't even know if it's a good idea or not.
I'd rather see cheaper healthy food than some stupid campaign,
you know. Yeah, the whole awareness campaign. I have doubts
about the effectiveness of those things. Well, they have an
obesity awareness campaign going on, and it's like they're using
these poor fat kids as models, and it's like, what
school do you go to? You have to be private
tutored now because you're literally the poster child for obesity,
(11:51):
you know. Um. So, you were saying that the Brits
came up with the the the idea of doing a
seventeen point five value added team point five percent value
added tacks. Right, value added taxes Basically like every time
UM raw material comes into the manufacturing plant, there's a
tax on that. UM. When the manufacturer finishes the final product,
(12:14):
sends it to a exporter, there's a tax on that.
Exporter gives it to a distributor, there's a tax on that.
And ultimately all these taxes build up and are passed
on to the consumer, right um. And then the savings
aren't passed on that the taxes to the extra payment. Um.
So the these these Brits who studied that found that
if you if you did that seventeen point five percent
(12:36):
tax and you just did it on foods with saturated fat,
that it could actually be counterproductive. They modeled it and
they found that it would drive people to other foods
and uh yeah like uh and and would have even
more severe health consequences, right, um. And then what's more,
(12:58):
here's a big problem too. Um. It would increase food
costs by about three two. So here's here's here's where
we reach a really So if you're a liberal, right,
and you're like, no, we need to we need to
look out for people. These people don't understand the the
the consequences of their eating habits, and their diet habits
are passing me along to their children. We're all gonna
(13:20):
die at age fifty. Um, So we need this kind
of tax. And somebody goes, uh, it's it's regressive, so
it's unfairly taxing the poor, and every liberal just goes
forget it, just forget it all, never get behind it.
And that's part of the problem because you know, the
poor tend to spend a larger percentage of their income
on food, so if you start taxing food, it's going
(13:42):
to unfairly hit the poor harder than anybody else. So
they found the three point two for that, um for
that one that's just saturated that and they did too
other models too. Yeah, the one um where they actually
assign a score rating to your food. Um. And don't
ask me about the stands for but the ssc G
three D score. I looked, I couldn't find what it
(14:04):
stands for super secret. Let's just call it that the
super secret score. UM. So that basically they're gonna rate
foods based on UM eight nutrients and a higher score
is bad if you're if you're a plus eight, then
you're going to get taxed more. And that would save lives.
I guess is that a year? Yeah? And then UM
(14:26):
increase four percent, so even higher increase in food costs, right,
but it saves lives rather than having more severe negative
consequences UM. And it's it hits that sweet spot that
you're looking for the science, right, So, like you could
run anything conceivably through this algorithm. Doesn't it's blind to
whether it's lean cuisine or ho hose. It's gonna spit
(14:50):
out a score, and depending on the score, you get
taxed or not. That makes a little more sense. It
does still though four percent increase in UM food UH costs,
that's significant, it is UH. And then the third one
was where basically it was they spread the tax among
a bunch of different foods, almost half of all foods.
(15:11):
I don't know, I don't understand. Yeah, I didn't get
this one, okay, so um, but what we did. What
they found was that it saves lives, but it increases
taxes by about four point six percent. So if you're
an anglophile and you are into studies and you like
choosing multiply um, you would probably go with number two.
I think it makes the most sense, and it should
(15:36):
everyone else. I was just describing ourselves. Um. Actually, in
Britain they already do this on some things like ice
cream and potato chips they mentioned in here, UM already
have a value out of tacks. And in some states,
and no, George is not one of them, they tax
um small taxes on soft drinks and things like that. See.
I don't know if that's true, because um, I found
(15:57):
this one. Uh, this one article about Redmond, California, where
they're talking about adding a one cent per ounce soda
tax and it says that they would be the first
city in the country to actually push it through. Yeah,
well maybe it does. Say California and Maine in Maryland
had fat taxes UM approved and then repealed. So yeah,
(16:20):
first sitting in the nation to Levey attack specifically targeting
soda and sugar laden beverage is interesting. So, but if
this goes through, it's coming up pretty soon, I guess
in November. But if it goes through, there's that one
problem again where it's a regressive tax because it's a
fixed amount. It's one cent per ounce, and because of that,
(16:43):
the cheaper the value of an ounce of soda, the
more percentage you're gonna pay in taxes. Right, So let's
say you pay a dollar for your generic store brand
two Leader, that's sixty six or sixty seven ounces, you're
gonna pay at a cent parounce, you're gonna pay an
extra sixty seven cents, which is more costs. Yeah, it's
(17:06):
almost double what you were paying before. And the people
who are buying that dollar store brand two Leader are
probably people who can afford the dollar, right exactly. Now,
if you do a twelve pack or something like that, um,
and it's a hundred and forty four ounces, but a
twelve packs already like six bucks, that's only an extra
dollar forty four. That's only like or something like that
(17:28):
added tax rather than sixties. So that's why they say
regressive taxes are usually unfairly burdening to the poor. Yeah,
that makes sense. I see Uh, well, I see it
all the time. Let's just say that you do. I
used to work in in the convenience store, and so
I had a a good eye on who was buying
(17:49):
what and what kind of snacks people ate and stuff
like that. I was amazed to find when I worked in, um,
a gas station, that people cho white clay. Excuse me,
they chew white clay. I don't know what that means.
You've not seen white clay. Look around next time you're
in a gas shitch, and especially out in the sticks,
there'll be a little cell of fame bag with like
(18:12):
the little paper hanger, you know, like you buy like
gummy worms or whatever in like that. But um, it's
a food. It is not a food item. It's clay,
and people chew it. Apparently it's um it's like a
folk tradition among pregnant women to chew clay. But people
have like this kind of craving for it as well,
(18:33):
and they sell this in convenient story. I never knew that. Yeah,
that one always, that's a good one. I'm gonna be
in the lookout now. Um. So we've talked about all
the reasons why you should do this, right, Yes, it
seems like this would have all been pushed through if
there weren't some sort of opposition to the concept of
(18:53):
fat taxes like Tony Blair Oh yeah, for instance, in
two thousand four he called that a sign of a
nanny state, and basically that kind of sums it um.
Critics will argue that, you know, this is like the
government once again legislating something in you're a personal decision
(19:16):
you want to make, which is, you know what if
I want to eat twinkies and get fat and dive
a heart attack at forty it's my right because I
love those twinkies. It makes a really good case like
who who is the government to tell you you shouldn't write? Um.
There is a really good argument on the other side
that often comes from the same side, though, which is,
(19:38):
m if we as a society have to pay for
your health care, then yeah, you we do have a
stake in telling you, you know, you can't eat that twinkie,
And yeah, we agree. We can't tell you not to
eat that twinkie, but we can make you think twice
about it by raising the price of it. Well, and
(19:59):
they're in brings up the third model, which is not
to tax food but too um make people pay more
for something like insurance if they're obese. The the text
the person and not the item. Yeah, which is probably
the more diabolical model of the of the others. Uh yeah,
(20:24):
but it's also like I get that, but it's also
at least it singles out the the problem. Like although
some people might say the problem is the existence of
the twinkie, but they don't. But but the critics will
say no. But you know what, if you're super healthy
and you like to indulge the twinkie every now and then,
there is nothing wrong with the existence of twinkies. Check
that was hypothetical, right, you know what I'm saying. But
(20:46):
like you can't like if you love you this tax
on junk food and I'm a marathon runner that once
a week, I love my my Reese's cup. Why should
I have to pay more money on that because a
larger person eats some five times a day. See. I
disagree with that though, because think about it, man, Like,
like who's really paying for that that extra tax? Todd
(21:08):
the larger person who eats them any times a day,
or you who eats them once a week. It's like,
buck up and pay the extra forty cents and shut up.
We're trying to deal with something over here. Go run
your marathon. That that's what I have to say to
that person. Um, as far as it goes within the
obese person, who when you are faced with that idea
(21:30):
of having to pay more for that Reese's, there's no
sweet spot. As bad as economists want to be able
to say, this is the point where everyone will stop
paying for Reese's and stop eating them. It's the same
with gas. No one has any idea. You can take
the average of all this, but it's really different for everybody.
(21:53):
So that's one of the big challenges is how much
do you raise? UM. So, if you take a way
the the idea that that's going to change behavior, it
might not. It might just mean that people are going
to have to shell out more money, which sucks. Um. Well,
what happened with smoking? Did people? Well, that is less
when they started taxing the cred out of that did
(22:14):
a really good example of how you can successfully tax
unhealthy stuff um and change people's behavior. So that it
did work. But they think about what a pack of
cigarettes cost today compared to ten years ago. It's like
I think in in say New York, it's probably about
(22:35):
twelve times more than before. Um, I know, like almost
overnight after the tobacco settlement was settled, tobacco prices doubled
just from the added tax. But uh, tobacco use has
gone down, like went down like from like two seven
(22:55):
due to the price, or they believe it's due to
the price, probably also due to public education, but really
they were educating the public before than anyway. So yes,
they think that it has to do with the the
fact that the tobacco Settlement led to just ridiculously higher
taxes and still continues to. So you can say that
there's a model that Okay, if you just keep adding
(23:18):
more and more and more money in the form of
attacks to this item, eventually everybody's going to fall off, right,
you will reach that point where no one will pay
that any longer. What we were talking about, where where
you're actually taxing the consumer. That's different. That's saying I'm
whether you eat terribly or not until you get down
(23:42):
to a certain what body mass index or whatever. Um,
you have to pay more for health insurance. I almost
feel like it should be the other way around, like
car insurance, like you get breaks if you're a good driver,
like maybe if set up in centiplans, if you lose weight,
then you get lower costs, right, be nice to lower
(24:03):
costs for a change, it would be, But it's ultimately
the same thing. It's just a different way of looking
at it. The people who aren't losing weight or paying
they're paying more than other people. But I see what
you're saying. It's starting out at level and then um,
people who are better at something get or who do
well pay less. Yeah, it's it seems fair. There's some problems,
so like how do you how do you keep track
(24:25):
of that, keep track of the individual? Yeah? And yeah,
I mean how often can do you have to Like,
if you lose a significant amount of weight, do you
go in and say, hey, I need a letter from
you saying like I can get a reduction in my
insurance now because I've hit this goal or whatever. You know,
run it through your doctor and you know, have a
(24:46):
have a standardized form where they take certain measurements and
if you want to, if you want to apply and
get the cheaper rates, then it's up to you to
get those sheets filled out and turn them in every
six months. I think you may have just all the
big problem that makes sense to me. Well, um, in
Japan they're doing something like that. It's called the Matabo
(25:06):
program uh where every year everybody goes in for an
annual check up anyway, and they do it through their employer.
They added some sort of like body mass index measurement
now too. You know, there's like for the person there's
no financial steak in losing weight or getting a target weight, um,
but there's a lot of societal and peer pressure from
(25:28):
their employer who's getting pressured from their city or county
or town which is getting hit financially for for X
number of people that are not losing weight. Um. So
they're using like this societal pressure to pressure people because
the Japanese no shame. And we'll see that was that
would work for me because I'm overweight. And if I
(25:51):
guarantee you if every time they rang up something, if
a a little speaker at the regishore went fat tax,
fat tax, like stop buying those things or I would
you know, find out a way to get them on
the black market. Well, I think a lot of people
wouldn't for sure. Yeah, that would shame me that that's
what they should do. I'm amending my previous statement, they
(26:12):
should have a computer voice that yells out fat decks
every time you buy something fat. Why not just combine
both of those. Let's combine boat, because then I think
you have a powerhouse. Mother. And this is coming from
the guy it's like thirty pounds overweight. Sometimes we have
the best ideas. I can tell you, though, seeing um
like on a um like a restaurant's menu board, seeing
the calories next to it, that definitely has an effect
(26:34):
on my behavior for sure. Ah apparently anyway, it's not
like but seeing it, like, yeah, that's really nine calories.
I don't feel like that right now. Yeah, I guess,
so it doesn't for me. I guess I'm never fooling
myself into thinking that that fried chicken doesn't have that
many calories, but maybe seeing it, Yeah, I get you. Yeah,
(26:57):
I guess if I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah,
fried chicken has that many lari But you think about
it if you see it. Yeah, Okay, So what do
what do Americans sink? If you believe this pole One
in three believed that obese people should pay more taxes
than healthy weight people, and this is conducted by the
Phalanx Investment Partners LLC. Uh and uh, boy, he's got
(27:20):
a lot of he asked a lot of questions in here,
he's got a lot of stats. Um, he does find
an interesting and I two that, uh, the obese could
garner support by Americans where overweight. So what that means
is thirty of overweight people or even saying yes they
(27:42):
should be tax or they should pay more for health care.
It makes he used the terrible, terrible analogy, Um, should
we allow short sighted or nearsighted people to become lion tamers?
And he's he's basically impairing that. But that kind of
um brings up a larger question like is this habit?
(28:06):
Is it just poor habits and poor eating behavior eating patterns?
And if so, then yeah, this guy can make a
pretty good case that, yeah, we need to break people's
bad eating habits, especially if they're passing them along to
their kids. Well. Interestingly, younger people responded generally uh more
(28:27):
in favor of taxing food more than older adults, and
people of higher income responded more positively to a fat
tax quote unquote yeah then obviously people with a lower income,
So yeah, wholesome weight terrible that I didn't mean that
like that. So this is all kind of theoretical right here.
(28:48):
I mean, what, Richmond, California might have a one sense
soda tax, but they'd be the only city with that.
Other places have tried at New York tried the same thing, um,
but apparently the soda come Benese shouted it down as
a um naked money grab, cleverly disguised as a health policy.
(29:08):
That's sad. It sucks from lobbyists get their meat hooks
and stuff, um and things like money grab. But if
you go to Hungary or Denmark, hungry is it's awesome
that they have a fat tax because of the country's name.
But um, if you go to Hungary, your Denmark, um,
there are fat taxes instituted there. Hungry has one that's
(29:30):
like a flat thirty point thirty seven euro tax um
on anything that's unhealthy. And I'm not quite sure what
the parameters are, but basically dunk food what we consider here.
And then Denmark just instituted something to where um they
tax saturated fats in um foods to the tune of
(29:55):
like sixteen kroner a kilogram, which comes out to be
like a dollar twenty nine a pound and then divide
it up and they take into account not just what
ends up in the end result of the fat, but
how much fat is also put in and maybe lost
along the way. Interesting, So they're really going after it. Yeah,
I like. I like the companies that incentivized, like our
own Discovery Channel will pay for half of your stomach
(30:18):
stapling gym membership. Uh, which is great, Like make a
little cheaper to join the gym. Can't make you go
to the gym, but you feel like a sucker when
you're paying to go to the gym and don't go
to the gym. I forgot that they'll do that. I
need to take them up on that. Oh yeah, dude,
it's once you just missed the deadline. But it's a
quarter your gym membership for you any me? Really? Yeah, wow,
(30:44):
that's great. I totally forgot about that. And it's not
the most money in the world, but a few shekels
makes you feel good. Yeah. I will definitely take them
up and thank you for reminding me each other. Well,
next time my reminder pops up, I'll remind you. How
about that, I'll go start it today. Um let's see.
But yes, please do remind me, just because it will
make me feel good that you remember. Um, I guess
(31:06):
that's about it. Bat taxes, they're all over the place
in Europe. They're spreading their their way west. Yeah. Maybe
let's see. If you want to learn more about the
proposals for the fat tax, you can type in fat
tax and the search part at how stuff works dot com.
That will bring up an article written by Jeopardy winner
Jacob Silverman. Yeah, Jacob, I watched all three of those shows.
(31:28):
He won twice. He won three times before. Right, Well,
he's coming back. They had to suspend for like they do,
like the tournament or something. Huh, so he'll be back
at some point to continue his run. That is awesome. Yeah,
and I never even knew the guy, but um, he
was really nice to me when I first got hired, Like,
uh we he emailed me a bunch and kind of
(31:48):
like helped me out early on. And then I saw
him on tvails Like so that's what Jacob Silverman woks like,
Oh you never saw him high. I never even saw him.
Oh yeah, he was a neat guy. Um yeah, we'll congret.
Listen to Jacob. Also, if you want to learn about
b D d Um. You can type in into the
search bar and that will bring up an article by M. E.
E UM. And I said searchbar in there somewhere, which
(32:12):
means it's time for listener mail. So Chuck, sorry, I
know that normally we should be doing listener mail here,
but let's let's tell everybody something, okay, So um iTunes
it's cool enough to say, hey, guys, what entertainment podcast
is your favorite entertainment you said? They put in quotes, um,
(32:34):
and uh they there's us. There's competition. Stiff dude, US,
Ted Talks, Discovery News, Um, Freakonomics, Radio Lab, Radio Lab Dude.
We're up against Radio Lab right now? Um? Is that
all of them? I don't want to leave anybody out.
Very great podcast I can't remember, but yeah, we're up
(32:57):
against some heavy hitters, so we are so um. They
created a poll on the iTunes Facebook page. So you
can go to iTunes on Facebook and if you look
on their wall and go down, UM, let's see I
don't know a few posts. You're gonna see that that
you know, what entertainment podcasts do you like the most? Right?
(33:18):
You can go vote for us if you want. Indeed,
that would be very nice. We think that would be
sweet if you did. If not, it's cool. We you're
listening anyway, We know you like us, and we won't
extort anything from you. Um, but if you're having trouble
finding it, here's the U R l H T T
P S colon slash slash www dot facebook dot com.
(33:41):
You should probably go get a pain. Wait is that
in the oral okay slash questions? That's plural slash one
zero one five one zero one five zero seven one
two four five eight zero three slash. That's right, And
(34:06):
you can go vote for us if you want to
vote for us. You can also go vote for Ted Talk.
You can vote for whoever you want. But we just
think it was a nice thing that they did, and
we'd about to be featured and oh yeah we left
that part out. Whoever wins gets featured on the iTunes
home page on June. Yeah. Anyway, good check it out
and if you're if you're unfamiliar with iTunes, check that
(34:28):
out too. Um, Josh, I'm gonna call this uh pediatrician.
Uh follow up with Marinol. Remember in our Medical Marijuana podcast,
we talked about the synthetic pill Marin all that you
can get a prescription for guys. I'm a huge fan,
and I even followed and said hi to Josh once
(34:48):
in Macy's Atlenox Malling. Oh yeah, yes, yes, you know
this guy. I remember that guy. Yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy the doctor.
I didn't realize Jimmy was a pediatrician. He is. By
the way, I had a fan encounter at uh the
grocery store without my tooth in the other day, to
embarrassing No, I like, I don't think you noticed, but
(35:10):
I think I came across as odd because I was
acting real funny because I didn't have my tooth then
I didn't want to smile real big, so I was
kinda like, nice to meet you. Anyway. I'm a huge
fan from Jimmy, and I was particularly interested in Chuck's
hesitancy and saying he had taken a Mariano pilled before,
(35:31):
since it's a legitimate prescription drug. H While one doesn't
normally associate medical marijuana with the under eighteen year old crowd,
the use of marianal is not uncommon. Actually in our
pediatric oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy, and we use it as
a second or third line of anti nasea drug. However,
in children who are unresponsive to those medications, marian All
(35:52):
is safe and awful, highly effective alternative. That being said,
you'd be surprised at the number of parents who are
hesitant or who even blatantly refused to allow their child
to take mayor and all because of the stigma associated
with it being quote from marijuana. Uh. This normally leads
into a conversation describing the fact that many of our
medicines are created based off of street drugs. Like you
(36:14):
guys mentioned the derivation of the very commonly used morphine
from heroin. I'd say fifty to sixty in the time
we can convince the parent to allow us to help
their child. However, again, it's certainly not uncommon for them
to refuse. It's incredibly frustrating, let me tell you, especially
when a child is clearly suffering because of their parents hardheadedness.
(36:35):
But we ultimately have to respect their opinions and their wishes. UH.
Doctors who house he doesn't respect anybody's opinions or wishes.
He just hammers through the best treatment he can think of.
I just thought you guys may find that aspect of
the social stigma associated with mayor and all. Uh interesting,
thanks for doing the topic. It's when that comes up
frequently in my circles, and that is Dr Jimmy. Thanks
(36:58):
Dr Jimmy. I totally we remember you. That was that.
That was nice. That made my day that one time. UM.
Umi was very impressed. Yeah, and uh, let's see, UM,
if you have an opinion on the fat attacks, I'm
sure there are plenty. I'm pretty sure we would get
them even without asking, but let's go ahead and ask.
(37:20):
Make sure everybody feels comfortable telling us what they think. UM,
be nice, but we want to hear about it. You
can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
UM We're on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff
you should Know, and you can email us at stuff
Podcasts at Discovery dot com for more on this and
(37:44):
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works dot com.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.