Would a video game tax help fight obesity?

The Associated Press

The taxman cometh?

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 3 days ago

Would a video game tax help fight obesity?

All those hours of playing "Halo" are creating halos of chub around our guts. That's Gail Chasey's theory, anyway. The New Mexico lawmaker has proposed the "Leave No Child Inside" bill, a 1 percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment. The tax would raise an estimated $4 million a year to be used in improving education and fighting childhood obesity.

"The goals of the bill are to improve the academic performances of our kids, to promote a more healthy lifestyle and to provide our children with outdoor learning experiences, using our state parks and public lands as classrooms," said Michael Casaus of the Sierra Club.

Should government tax video games to fight obesity?

Ben likes: Paying the price for irresponsibility?

MPinkeyes/Wake Up America

There have even been activist groups who claim that letting a child become obese is child abuse, or neglect. While letting your child become obese is irresponsible and bad parenting, it is not abuse. But once this mindset has become ingrained into the public’s thought process, it will be easier for the government to regulate (tax). All parents, and others who aren’t parents who just happen to be buying a product that has been targeted, like televisions, will have to pay the price for those parents who are irresponsible.

Joel likes: Free to choose obesity

Paul Krugman/New York Times

How can medical experts who see obesity as a critical problem deal with an ideological landscape tilted in the direction of doing nothing?

One answer is to focus on the financial costs of obesity, and the fact that many of these costs fall on taxpayers and on the general insurance-buying public, rather than on the obese individuals themselves.

Above all, we need to put aside our anti-government prejudices and realize that the history of government interventions on behalf of public health, from the construction of sewer systems to the campaign against smoking, is one of consistent, life-enhancing success. Obesity is America's fastest-growing health problem; let's do something about it.