THE CALL this week for the Government to introduce a “fat tax” as one step towards dealing with our spiralling national health care bill is one that’s sure to provoke emotions among sections of our community for a while.
In fact, within minutes of the story hitting the headlines there was the inevitable social media backlash with many questioning why “fat” people should be targeted.
On the other hand, a number of commentators were quite strong in their view that if there is to be a fat tax it should target all those who import or serve unhealthy foods that lead to obesity.
It is interesting just how deeply the issue cuts, as exemplified by one reader who suggested that the country needed to tackle the matter of overweight citizens with even more vigour than that displayed by the police against illegals guns, since “fat will kill far more people this year than guns”.
Up front we accept that genetics, underlying health problems, medications and injuries can lead to the accumulation of weight in an individual — but our society cannot hide behind these factors.
Our position on this matter is very simple: whether we tax the fat people, tax the foods that contribute to their overweight state or try a totally different suite of measures, we can’t afford to procrastinate on this issue any longer.
It is also quite significant that it has taken centre stage in what essentially is a discussion on reforming our national health care system to make it more financially manageable without necessarily depriving citizens of the benefits they have traditionally enjoyed and quite frankly deserve.
Somewhere along the way, however, we all must come to the realisation that the health issues confronting our society, where a recent study said approximately 80 per cent of females and more than 55 per cent of males are overweight or obese, have their genesis in a lot more than food.
We only need to look where it starts – in our children. Consider how many of our children, even those living within half a kilometre of their schools, will wait hours for a bus rather than walk. Or think of how many of our children, with the consent of parents, find every excuse not to participate in games at school.
Unfortunately, many of the adults in these households are in no moral position to reprimand or sanction them because their own lifestyles are an expanded version of their children’s. The concepts of exercise, leisure that does not involve the television or computer, and manual labour in today’s Barbados are foreign to too many of us.
And it is these lifestyles that are then compounded by what we eat – by lives characterised by constant snacking and fast food. When confronted, however, we are quick to suggest that healthy food is too expensive and so we have no choice but to live on sugary snacks and drinks and greasy, sodium laced fast food. They are nothing more than convenient and hollow excuses by persons who just will not take personal responsibility for their health.
The end result is that we all, including the irresponsible, then have to contribute to an annual health bill that is perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars more than it should be because of the chronic non-communicable diseases with which we are now saddled because of our unhealthy lifestyles.
So the concept of a “fat tax” may offend some, but if it gets the discussion going, and that discussion results in a positive outcome in terms of our national health index, then it was an offence that was well worth it.
