an issue free accreditation free. for charges free arrangement free is free. to type free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects a freebie deodato r.t. dot com. hello and welcome to crossfire i'm peter lavelle all of me should watch what we eat

but should we be taxed in the name of health when it comes to food this is one of the aims of the so-called fat tax governments all over the world and throughout history have pushed policies to shape behavior in the name of public health so should food be subject to punitive taxation. to cross out the so-called fat tax i'm joined by my guests in new york meanwhile she is the president of national action against obesity jeff steer he is a senior fellow at the national center for public policy research and donica moore she's a woman's health expert an advocate physician educator and a media commentator on cross talk rules in effect folks that means you can jump in anytime you want me i probably should lose a few pounds because of the food i eat so should that food that i eat be taxed to teach me to eat better and to be have better health. well studies show

if we increase costs or put about a twenty percent tax on certain foods that you will see a reduction in consumption i can't imagine someone trying to float a twenty percent tax on anything right now i see it more than a sin tax or punitive i see it more as if a company if their production results and waste of pollution then that company is responsible for those externalities 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 the 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. mamie 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 obesity 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 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 consequences they say we've got a big problem obesity and we do and they say here's a solution. the white house in the first lady let's move campaign has taken

a very reasonable approach i would wonder whether mimi thinks 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 mimi go ahead make me go ahead respond well look you know michelle obama is saying many of the things now that i've 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 very much in partnership with corporations and there's a profit motivation to have us eat more or you know the problem motivation behind selling food big business for food and beverage i don't personally have a profit motivation behind what i do i've been doing this as 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 exercise it. a course making healthier food on the i'm not talking about well and i'm not a guilty pleasure wish i could jump in here as go ahead go ahead but when you found her 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 at 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 as 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 were 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 could learn yeah i think we can learn thank you i think we

learned that the we learned that the fat tax in and yes it's not a tax on fat people it's a tax on foods that certain people don't well that's actually an attack on saturday when it really let's be honest it is a tax on. 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 you just may have a different theory just finish your 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 of the left to saying 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 in 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 it so you know i understand. why i can't imagine falling. it's going to be me first of all i can't imagine i can't imagine what it would mean to be against corporations i'm pro-capitalism and i think everyone where 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 can even tell 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 could 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 a 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 disparate 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 not only general american so you know many turn away and eleven percent no doubt i would think. that's good you. know yet. it's going to 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 rich products ok you've got to go to the break. come on jeff go ahead. this is such a paternalistic approach approach that we can change how to turn to 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 ahead 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 will.

the fight. the fight. the fight. thank.

the faith and. you believe the only.

welcome act of rostock i'm peter lavelle to 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 for tween 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 ok we don't need to back out to live so i mean that's like an easy way to settle here but ok there are fewer people seem. to be chilled to their theory so he kills me exactly we're not denying that we're not denying that but if you are one of the major sans serif come on ladies let's just go first go ahead. well let me first answer

a question from the break where she says we need to separate companies from communicating through marketing with children me for gets to that. 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 is just you know you can't 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. i'm quite confident right

a parent quite confident that means that 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 really doesn't want us around 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 of tending a normal weight for years as doctors now we've got to talk about the financial.

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 after all why they don't buy sugary we can rely on all dairy it does make a gesture that 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 engine issue since there's a difference between a decision and it it's a paternalistic ok let me let me change and we've been so essential to wait wait i mean i can't 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 the age five target that's when eating an exercise habit have a sort of salvation 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 challenged children 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 innocent victims that need to be protected and we answer you know that he 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 only use a we're. part of do when you and i said look just ahead we're ok jeff going to reply to me going if i could get 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 only you knew it was a. gun pointed to my mouth because i've heard her said i said we are never going to get is elected 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 trial jeff and i will moderate vironment for children done that could go ahead and i mean. 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 complement 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 opinion 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 name of the physician you don't like a done to 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 baguio taxes have gone up that's not true and there's just i don't know where the money and they really don't usually go and i think because you're a question of the way and leave your d.n.a. 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 no say that say well i never had any issue of what we should do with the 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 for on their merican audience for example denmark is the size and population of the city of miami or the state of wisconsin all right so the issue of 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 to raise 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 core used

to subsidize foods that are healthy like vegetables or used to redress i know you would like that but in the real world you've got a better we've got us data we got us to do in government maybe we can we let me tell you let me jump in right ok all of you are experts who you've shown that ok but if i go to mimi what do you do in a society is this palm bar did with propaganda d.-e. 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 nannies 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 the 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 gage if you want to reply to 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 looks moved 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 larger movie industry well that's no no no there's a will in order for them to play. well 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 as new career and working on the web and 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 industry where the coca-cola is in

the patsies are going to say your right so does bad all children should be doing drinking water has low fat i disagree with you mary you know if you know communities where do you want to shut them down i want to show them around here tonight is not i know i don't never should you know anybody and what about a business that's where you are if you really are 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 respond there is a bigger than anything if you're in the sense for straight las there formulations across that already from experience to be i think voice at all thank you very much many thanks today to my guests in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember crosstalk. you believe we will.

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the r t dot com you. get are sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.