Should there be an obesity tax?

when I was a teenager I ate like a horse and never gained weight. Used to play video games most of my waking hours.

Metabolism yo.

Can only speak for myself of course. But if I had to pick one single decision/action from the last 20 years which I think had the most overall positive impact on my life - getting rid of all the TVs and never buying another one would be on the short list. Probably second only to the day I took up Jujitsu.

From mental well being to healthy life style - that single choice has cascaded through everything in a positive way.

I was only just shopping a little while ago. And this highly rotund pre-teen boy was standing in the aisle with a "Cadbury Flake Celebration Cake" in each hand. Clearly not a diet choice his current figure would seem to be recommending to him and even less so to his parents.

But what struck me more was he was just standing there calling for his "parent" to bring the trolley over to him to put the cakes in. The thought he could literally carry the two cakes to the trolley seemed not to have occurred to him on any level. He then also had to place the cake in sideways because the reach of his arms was not such that he could face the trolley and reach it over his stomach.

It is likely incidents and families like that one which motivates people like the OP to want to intercede on a taxation level. Weight loss is complex and nuanced and difficult as many users have rightly pointed out. And it is impossible to know any random individuals life circumstances.

But it is hard to look at something like that and not fall instantly into the "these people are doing it to themselves and simply can not be bothered to do it any other way" head space which clearly motivates the OP to make threads like this one looking for simplistic quick fixes to berate such people with.

Exactly. Which is why I was so careful to start the post with "I can only speak for myself here".

But it speaks to why the "Just use willpower" types on the thread are missing the nuance. Willpower does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in the persons lived reality. And a person with all the willpower in the world can actually fare worse than someone with very little of it. If the lived circumstance of the latter is putting less pressure on willpower than the former.

As I wrote in my first post to you - exercise for many goes far beyond merely what calories they burn in the moment. Rather it has the potential to change many other aspects of that person's lived reality which feed positively back into factors affecting weight. So weight gain, weight loss, and relationships with food are massively more nuanced and intricate than many people on threads like this wish to portray. Especially the simplistic "just stop stuffing food in your face hole" or "Just tax it and they will stop buying it" types.

Are you going to have an anorexia tax, for the people who use up loads of medical resources?

There's a difference between lazy fat, socially fat, and compulsive overeating or depression led comfort eating. Can you easily decide which is which?

We also have a large issue with undiagnosed depression in this county, would you not think to tackle this first (which is often linked to overeating)...?