Taxing is a good idea, it could also help the health system to provide campaigns and treatment to those who choose not to eat healthy. It will make the companies try to produce healthier products so they can avoid the taxes and is not forbidding anyone to buy the unhealthy stuff, you just have to pay a little more to do it and it is still your choice.

Off course this will only work in a low poverty country, because the poor people need the high energy intakes at a low price to survive. So only junk food that is considered processed (ingredients cannot be taxed) and a luxury can be taxed, and it becomes quite a difficult task to do it.

Junk food shouldn't be so cheap so lifting any subsidies would help there. There should be a limit to what a person can order from fast food restaurants, an actual limit to "all you can eat". I don't know about new taxes, but kids should be taught how to cook from scratch in school, it should get the funding sex ed gets. Cooking is a very important life skill and if people know how to cook properly, they should be healthier.

taxing to stop people from doing something definatly falls under the catagory of removing choice. you said it all right there in one sentance. Forcing people to pay more is forcing people to change their choices. it never works, it has never worked, and never will. People will always make their own choices, no manner of taxes will stop that, so why punish every body?  Heck, you can even ban and outlaw sugar, and that won't work either, as prohibition also never works. Look at the world around you, when has the government deciding something is best for your health ever worked succesfully, prohibition-no, ban drugs-no, tax cigaretts-no. When has education worked to help battle bad habbits-cigarettes yes. So its better to educate than to tax and ban. But of course its easier to just tax and ban than to actually solve the problem of teaching people (mainly kids from a young age) the proper way to eat and make choices for themselves.

i work at a pizza place with an all you can eat pizza and salad bar, we dont have very many obese customers, why punish the rest of them for the very few who can't control themselves? Why not just have the few that cant control themselves live with their choices, so perhaps they will change their minds and change their ways.

I actually agree with what you said, but those that do become obese don't seem to learn, they just get fatter and fatter. It is their choice though. There is nothing a government can do to get people healthier, the unhealthy can only change this. Education is a big part in that. 

Yea, bad subsidies, and bad education have done their damage. But there has been a big push for healthier items everywhere in the US so things will turn around. As people get educated about it they will get healthier.

No it does not, taxing something is not removing choice is making the not taxable stuff a better choice, but is not removing the product from the shelf, or banning anything. If you want to buy the unhealthy stuff, it is there buy it, but is a little more expensive, is not like taxes will double the value of the item, it will just make it 10-20% more expensive.

And I agree that educating people is a very good, but the money for the education and the commercials about how bad are the cigaretts for you come from the extra taxes that those items have, so the idea is to tax rationally and invest the money on education programs, win-win situation. And way better than just ban a product.  

Well I know the high price of junk food does work as a deterant for me, but I hear that's not common.

LOL, well what about restaurants. Most items would not be labeled high fat/salt/sugar, but a few things would. Would it not help guide people to healthier alteratives? As for fast food, this still helps quite a bit. You know how places like McDonalds, or Wendy's have those cheap "healthy" snack wraps? Guess what, the amount of salt in them greatly exceeds that of a big mac. I didn't know that until I took a good look at the nutrition menu, and I'm sure most don't.

For fast food, I think extreme cases should be labeled. e.g. Sweet Onion Chicken Teriaki and Subway. It's salt content is above the daily recommended intake for a 6 inch. lol.

Eating Nutritionally doesn't mean you don't enjoy your food LOL. There are plenty of burger joints which taste much much better then McDonalds and are a lot healthier.

Exactly why punish everyone? Tax junk food, but reduce the tax on healthy foods.

Make obese people pay the taxes responsible for their health care.

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I agree with you about Education, there should be nutritional classes in elementary school.

However I disagree with you about taxing and banning, done right it does help. e.g. Alcohol above 40% is banned in Canada, but not USA, and we have a significantly lower alcohol abuse problem. We also have more institutions dealing with addiction and stuff, but the 40% ban definatly does more help then harm.

Man you really hate salt. I salt everything from burgers to mashed potatoes.

I don't believe labeling things like that as "WARNING: HIGH SALT/FAT CONTENT" will help at all. Most people will find it amusing more than a serious health risk. Most people only eat out occasionally and are generally pretty healthy and the fat ones don't care. People eat what they want, regardless. 

Tax, labels, whatever isn't going to help IMO.