Looks like the fat tax will happen in the UK - http://www.financenews.co.uk/fnews/fat-tax-could-sting-the-uk-as-early-as-2012/

Hmm, I take issue with Government "educating" simply, because, really, it's a form of social-engineering. Not only that, but health effects from different diets is a highly controversial subject. The "6g of salt", or "5 portions of fruit and veg" stuff all has a lot of controversy behind it. In some ways, it's no different to the Government teaching Al Gore's approach to climate change.

Also, I think there's a difference between educating, and constantly enforcing the ideas with propaganda. This is what I meant by the social engineering thing. By all means, teach kids in schools the basics of how to maintain a healthy diet... but by consistantly playing commercials, running billboards and bus prints, and all the rest of it, they're not just educating, but also imposing their will.

Finally, the Government running these adverts is basically just subsidizing the health industries. The Government is paying for much of their advertisement costs, which really isn't fair. The industry os more than large enough, now, to fund its own advertising.

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Of course, much of US health problems come from HFCS... which wouldn't really be a key ingredient if it wasn't for Government meddling, with corn subsidies, in the first place.

Right. So if junk food were to rise in price commensurate with the jumps in organic crop prices, then people would have to choose to pay the same for bad food or good food, then they end up eating good food and the government pockets fees to cover the negative externalities created by those who choose the bad food

Not corn subsidies, but rather sugar tariffs, or that's what we're being taught in the International Trade class i'm taking atm. If sugar were taxed more fairly, companies would shift back to using real sugar in a lot of their products.

Agricultural subsidies just come with the territory of large economies, though. There's really no way to mobilize against them

Seems like a waste of time and energy

The subsidies and the tariffs are two sides of the same coin. Eliminating one should have the same effect as eliminating the other (if subsidies == tariffs, that is). Of course, the best thing to do would be to eliminate both, but, as you say, that's politically impossible to do, at this time.

Saying that, though, the UK has been reducing agricultural subsidies gradually, over time. Unfortunately, European CAP just means that they're getting their subsidy from elsewhere, though the UK has been campaigning to get CAP reduced... which, thanks to France, will probably never happen.

You have it wrong, eating a healthy meal right now cost about triple of eating an unhealthy one.  An equal rise in healthy and unhealthy foods will still have healthy foods priced too high still.  Buying soda is cheaper then water or juice, not just buy 1-2 dollars by 3-5.  Fruits are also vastly more expesive then junk food.  Now once you get into meats the price goes up even more.

It was a joke...

because it'd be a plate... that would set up portions... a way to get around it would be by making the meat tall.

Wow, is water really more expensive than soda? Even buying bottled (although buying larger than 1.5l bottles) hasn't cost me that much, and depending on where you live tap water is fine/fine after filtering. As for juice, people abuse it, no sugar added variety and all. That fructose is still fructose. Quite bothersome to see equal fruit and vegs recommendations on some food pyramids.

Though when it comes to the weight gains of junk food, I'd without a doubt attribute most of them to overly salty stuff, served with coke and co. loaded with HFCS (and even regular sugar, it's better, but not THAT much better), and yet more sweets as a dessert. So I don't know how much I'd trust a government that promoted that to come up with something new to educate me about. I eat a lot different than the generally accepted (also in Europe) food pyramid, way more meat/eggs/vegs and few grains. I've tried it the way they preach, and I get hungry within two hours. Still, both ways come out cheaper than eating out at junk food shops or ordering from them. 

Ultimately one can pig out on snickers bars or equally well on the finest Belgian pralines. A rich person can afford some pralines daily, and a poor person would afford the snickers. There is more than price as to why they don't overeat equally. It's the same with cheap food... it's not automatically junk food, it's not going to match organic in absolute quality, but it will be far from taking you straight to obesity. A lot of people just don't care to watch what and how much of it they eat, neither whether they move around enough.

A) Don't buy water.

B) If you do... where are you buying water from?  Where I live, and lived... a galon of water is 99 cents... a 2-liter is 1.50-2.50.   The only way i could see water costing more then soda is if you are to lazy to pour water into a freaking glass... and even then... i'm not sure i buy that.

C) Fruit and vegetables are actually cheaper unless you are talking about Ramen.  You've got to look at how many meals you can make out of the healthy stuff you buy.