i see it very much like that it's pogo v and if you make a person who says but that decision imposes a cost on others then yeah we should tax that that's the case with obesity it's based on our personal choices our lifestyle the costs associated with that are not wholly owned by that person we as a society are picking up the price picking up the bill on that escalating cost of health care diabetes for one is you know goes on for decades and what we see is about three quarters of health issues are the result of personal choices so somewhere we have to get the revenue to cover those costs ok jeff but seems reasonable to me what do you think. mimi makes a better argument against government funded health care than she does for taxes you know one of the problems that we have in our society is a very real problem is that cheap food bad calories bad decisions what we

need to do is you know if you think about the unintended consequences of a fat tax everyone's going to want to have less expensive food cheaper food but that's what some one of the activists are complaining about that food is too cheap so we're going to move to even less expensive probably less healthy foods to avoid the fat tax government big government activists often ignore the unintended consequence is they say we've got a big problem obesity and we do and they say here's a solution you know the white house in the first lady's let's move campaign has taken a very reasonable approach i would wonder whether mimi thinks that the first lady has gone far enough or is she part of this whole corporate love fest or she is the first lady's let's move campaign right or has not gone far enough maybe go ahead maybe go ahead reply well look you know michelle obama is saying many of the things now that i have said for years that i think is wonderful and she's absolutely right

that children need at least one hour of active play exercise each day we all need at least that if we have any hope of being healthy but where i think it hasn't gone far enough is it's very much in partnership with corporations and there's a profit motivation to have us eat more or you know there's a problem motivation behind selling food big business for food and beverage and i don't personally have a profit motivation behind what i do i've been doing this is a volunteer for years and you'll find that most health advocates are focused more on today's consequences of massive dollars behind marketing junk food from food and beverage rather than whatever unintended consequences just talking about i don't think there's any negative unintended consequences of getting an hour of a hoarder. course making healthier food i was talking about well and you know not to you know that it was with. go ahead go ahead but when you talk what michelle obama has done is positioned herself as first mom in chief and i think as

a physician and as a mother i applaud that because what she has done is added a very commonsense approach to this but if we get back to the original topic and talk about fat taxes i think first of all people need to understand what a fat tax is first of all there's a great misperception that a fat tax is a tax on fat people and that's not what we're talking about what we're talking about is not using a tax as a punitive measure but using a tax on foods that add no value to our nutritional scope and our nutritional intake as a motivational factor and yes what michelle obama is doing with the let's move campaign is motivational the tax adds a further motivation because when people are confronted with a choice between doing what's good for their waistline versus what's good for their wallet they're going to choose what's good for their wallet and what we need to understand as a society is that we need to separate the public health health motivations from the

increasing tax revenue motivations and say ok let's use these sin taxes as it wore on foods which absolutely had no nutritional value and then let's progress to something like they did in denmark were considering a fat tax on saturated fat and we saw lots of failures in that tax because it wasn't really well thought out but i think we can learn a lot more from our failures than our successes jeff you want to jump in there go right ahead i think we can learn yeah i think we can learn thank you i think we learned that the we learned that the fat tax and yes it's not a tax on fat people it's a tax on food that certain people don't well essentially. isn't it really let's be honest it is a taxi. you know it's a tax on everybody it's a well no it's a tax on every. day i decide to give you a very rarely. healthy foods occasionally ok just may have.

been issues point sorry for jumping in jeff go ahead. thank you it is a tax on everybody it is a tax on very thin people who exercise a lot and might occasionally want to enjoy a coca-cola you're taxing them too this is a a really bad idea to solve a complex problem you know we've got the first lady doing very reasonable things and then you've got people way out in the left to rethink that the obama administration is too far to the right that should tell you where maybe a reasonable approach is down the middle yes i from the right indorsing most of what the first lady has done you've got people on the very far left are trying to control how we live with fat taxes with limiting advertising they're against marketing the people who are pushing these taxes and many said it very directly are against corporations the first lady has decided we need to work together with corporations work with everybody everyone has to see to make you know what i am saying. why can't i mean i didn't follow it. was going to go

first of all i can't imagine i can't imagine what it would mean to be against corporations i have pro-capitalism and i think everyone when you are make a buck but i don't think that i don't think that adults should target children it's inappropriate for someone to try to have a direct relationship with someone's child who is not their own and that's what you see marketers are adults children or children i don't think that we should have adult marketers trying to establish his direct relationships and influence the behavior of children that's inappropriate adderley been debating that since the carter administration so i'm absolutely against marketing to children but i think that we have been telling you about it. here for state tax was quite broad the tax is quite broad in denmark it went after raw ingredients and i think that that was a move to far butter cheese milk having to pay seventy five extra cents on a pound of butter is a bit much when you and stead go after we're done i was talking about earlier the

ubiquitous. not essential products so chips donuts cookies cupcakes things like that being tax i think what it was even more sense and it's a shame in denmark rather than modifying the tax they're now saying let's abandon it completely and let's not look at sugar and i hope that the pendulum will swing back and they'll come up with a more moderate effort then i'll join a jumping ahead yeah and what i want to emphasize here is that doctors in general are in favor of these taxes and doctors represent the full political spectrum as far as i'm concerned this is not a political issue this is a public health issue and we need to be very clear about obesity in our health care costs have skyrocketed i mean he's talking about about targeting children we know that when healthy behaviors and started in children they become healthier adults we also know that teenagers are much more price sensitive when making decisions this is a regressive tax people are opposed to that for that basis but the fact is and

a regressive tax is one that disproportion proportionally affects people with lower discretionary income but i would like to argue the opposite position and that is that it disproportionately benefits people with less proport discretionary income we know that is a general american so you know many turn away and eleven percent no doubt i would think that this could you. please it's going to lead percent of their grocery bills on beverages and that's not counting milk milk is in the dairy category so right off the bat i can cut everybody's grocery bill by saying you don't need to drink i'm going to have rich products ok you've got to go to the break yes i know that yes please let me. come on jeff go ahead. this is such a paternalistic approach approach that we can change how eternally live like like

like we just. maternalistic paternalistic this is you know in america that's not the way we do things we want to encourage people to make better decisions give them better choices make healthy decisions easier but not change how people live that's the different world view we've got here ok now we do need to change how people live and we have to you reckon if we did it with some ok just we've done it with we even did it with soda in the one nine hundred seventy s. in terms of putting a deposit fee on soda bottles to encourage recycling and now recycling is part of our culture the fact is over thirty state anyone i have soda taxes me jump in my question my question for my question for jeff is that i agree people adults should be allowed to make whatever decision they want about their own body however right now we all as a society are picking up that tab if he wants to continue having adults make all the decisions they want about themselves how is he recommending they cover those costs because right now we all jump in and help cover those health care costs is he

suggesting we allow them to continue to damage their bodies but also leave them without any health care support to deal with the resulting health consequences ok that's a very good place to go to a short break folks and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the fact tax state or do. you believe we. are.

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you believe it will. welcome active rostock i'm peter of i'll remind you we're talking about the fact. ok jeff and i figure your i'm a former smoker ok i smoked almost three packs a day now i quit for for health reasons but if i'd been living in the united states i would have quit for money reasons ok so what's the difference between food and tobacco. we could talk about the different between food and tobacco all day long because there are no we don't we don't have all day long so give me weekends are ok . well we need food to live we don't need to back

go to live so i mean that's like an easy way to separate yeah but ok are we going to do that it would be nice to be chilled already so he kills me exactly we're not denying that we're not denying that but if you are one of the major same concerns come on ladies let's go first go ahead. well let me first answer mimi's question from the break where she says we need to separate companies from communicating through marketing with children me forgets to that's not only let. me finish hasn't even made the point yet go ahead maybe for me forget one or two very important people say what you want to do we talked about paternalistic or maternalistic she wants the government to supplant parents we haven't heard the word parents in this conversation except for the government maybe we have to talk about individual responsibility and we're talking about kids that's the role of parents and making sure that their children weren't how to digest marketing

information responsibly there is a role for parents here that that you think that they just you know you know they only can even begin to do that till around age eight to twelve so children under that is allowed to have no business being targeted by adult marketers. jumping i'm quite confident right up there and why can't it if it means children don't drink soda and i can assure you my children don't drink soda or any sugary beverages either so the question is how do we only a serious amount other parents and getting back to michelle obama she said a beautiful example for our country and this first of all one way we do it is we talk about it we talk about the relationship between food and health but we get much more attention when we talk about the relationship between food and money so let's talk about some facts the fact is the average obese person in the united states accrues twenty five percent more health care costs than a normal weight person the fact is that our health care costs related to obesity now exceed our costs related to tobacco abuse and alcoholism the fact is we lead

the world in the united states among having the highest percentage of obese adults and children so something's not working we've got to make a change we've been talking about the health benefits taking a normal weight for years as doctors now we've got to talk about the finance. benefits i can save a family of four thirty per cent off their grocery bills right off the top because most american families are eating thirty percent too much in terms of portion control i can save them an additional eleven i just. don't buy sugary we can rely on all dairy it. jeff we go on with these arguments we can go on with these arguments all day long let's establish obesity is a very serious public health problem it affects the entire society the question today is whether the government ought to supplant parents whether the government ought to be making decisions for people by changing the cost of food i'm again it's

not an option issue. there's a difference between a decision and it is incentive it's a paternalistic ok it's a me me me me and weight change and we've been so we've. been i am let me ask the question first ok on this program we've been told listen to parents ok but most parents are obese. well that's absolutely true this issue is about a preparedness see to age five target that's when eating an exercise habit habits or establishing body composition is established and many adults are not taking care of their own bodies not if they're obese already been there with a bit of arranging to do it they have a higher incidence of pregnancy problems higher incidence of delivery we even have a higher incidence of birth defects among were not child and of the o.p.'s so you have a full range of issues that society is picking up not to mention the toll on the children themselves they are un you know there are victims of this and it's the victims that need to be protected and we answer nobody have that obligation so when

parents are failing to keep their children safe then we must we have to see id when any of the indians and or a child we use a we. part of do we do and i said. ok jeff going to reply to me going if i could if i could jump in just be clear when you say we as a society you mean the government i agree we as a society need to work together as the first lady is doing with you just you when you say you were talking all you need was a. gun pointed to my mouth because i heard her said i said we are never going to get elected you know i've never been to meetings to really want to speak up in our schools we need to speak up in our communities and yes the government we need to encourage the government to help protect children as we do in a police force as we do in child services anything apart like building should be a safe environment for a child jump and i when the minor issues in environments for children done it could go ahead and i do believe very. i think there's

two totally different sets of issues everything mimi says is correct and everything jeff says is an interesting point of view but i think the it's not an if then proposition we all agree the city is our number one health problem. and it has tremendous social and medical and financial cost to our society i'm saying the government should consider these taxes because the government needs to be a parent i'm saying parents need to be parents doctors need to get the word out and media people need to get the word out but the government should consider these taxes because the government is picking up the price tag that's a totally different issue about the motivational aspects here and again as a physician i think we need to separate out the public tell you i never did anything and i said i'm going to. be an issue what is your personal choice.

and i want to figure out how to pay for that jeff go ahead on the thinking of the position you don't like a done it as a physician you probably also know if you're arguing that because food puts a cost on society we ought to have a tax on it just like we've had tobacco taxes you know good and well but the government has had less discipline than parents and children alike and spending that money the right way to back go taxes have gone up that's true and there's just one of them and they really said no we're not totally different i think because you're a question of the way and leave your name and the basis of your. the basis of your argument is we need more we need to return that money back to the government but we know from real data i have to say that say well i never sure what we should do with their taxes so that's a great question and here's what i think we should do with that tax revenue and if we look at denmark which is a real life example they generated two hundred twenty million dollars in tax revenue from their fat tax in one year and just remember for an american audience for example denmark is the size and population of the city of miami or the state of

wisconsin all right so the issue is what to do with that tax revenue was also a problem with the denmark model it just went to the general government coffers i would like to see and professor brownlee who raised this issue in the media in the one nine hundred ninety s. proposed i would like to see those tax monies raised from these sin taxes used to subsidize foods that are healthy like that stumbles or used to redress i know you would like but in the real world you've got. we've got us data we've got us. government and we need. all of you are experts here you've shown that ok but if i go to mimi what do you do when a society boarded with propaganda to eat garbage how do you stop that. yeah it's really quite tough one as you know and i've said before i'm against marketing to children i think we've got to call the question on that also it is

a constant onslaught of messages to eat more and eat unhealthy foods and i love that we were occasionally accused of being a food nanny i believe there's two types of food and it's those of us who don't really have a profit motivation and would prefer people eat healthier and have healthy lives and those who are food nannies who have a profit motivation to shove more food down your throat every minute of the day those kind of nannies are having a detrimental effect on our entire population and again the price tag associated with that is a huge problem for all of us to address and if three quarters of our health problems are due to our lifestyle choices we can no longer ignore this and pretend that the government can't get involved government is involved the government is involved with food pricing the government is involved with subsidies and the government is involved with paying a big portion of this health care price tag the government and that price tag means all of us the government isn't some abstract concept it's our taxes paying for

people's personal choices and that's a problem for you jeff you want to reply that i would love to thank you for the opportunity if we had if we've learned anything from the tobacco wars you hear language like mimi's where food companies are shoving food down your throat ok we've learned something from that which is you can't have wars you can't demonize industry have industry fight back you need to work together to come up with solutions the first lady's campaign let's move how. would you work with are you telling people buy less of your product as a capitalist why would they want to do that let's talk about a large movie industry well where you guys know there's a will and if you are going to play i'm going to show you what he's always been a serious point. the first lady has worked with bird's eye to have more marketing to make fruits and vegetables more appealing to children these are ways wal-mart has worked together with the first lady to have lower calories lower calorie

choices more palatable to children there are ways to work together with industry to actually make good use i encourage you and working with the women you know reading well wait i agree with you jeff that working with industry those are good examples of incremental change but there's no working with end of story where the coca-cola is in the patsies are going to say your right sodas bad all children should be doing drinking water so what you should have low fat i disagree with you mary i just look at you i see you here do you want to shut me down i want to show them around here tonight is not no i don't want to cover should you know anybody and what about a business that's one of the m.p.'s i mean you know they don't like stereotype program give her the last word thirty seconds companies like if you look at coke companies like coca-cola and pepsi they have responded to health initiatives most of those companies and other beverage companies have huge bottled water businesses if you look at how companies in corporate america are responders are they going to get an energy jury or sense for straight las their formulations across that i right

from experience to be i think voice i don't thank you very much many thanks today to my guests in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk. you believe we will. download the official location. choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need to. watch on t.v. any time.

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