Hacker News Reader

Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

Read "regulated" as "taxed" in this headline.

In another similar "regulatory" move, taxes on cigarettes have been shown to be effective for reducing smoking in "new smokers" and young adults (18 - 24) but with almost no effect in other age groups:

http://org.elon.edu/ipe/gallagher.pdf

and

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr4916a1.htm

Would a similar strategy really be effective w/sugar or just add a further tax burden to 95% of us?

Can't we come up with a better system that seeing more money out the door in taxes?

View on HN

Not too long ago a link was posted here regarding some research that suggested bodies that had been overweight will process foods differently to try to return to that weight, even after a person had lost weight via diet and exercise. The gist was that a person who was, say, 200 pounds and lost weight down to 160 pounds had to eat ~20% fewer calories to maintain that weight than someone who was at 160 without ever being overweight.

If that research is upheld upon further examination, then any policy which prevents young people from becoming obese in the first place would be perhaps the most promising way to obtain objective progress against societal obesity.

I'm not suggesting that taxes are the right way to go, but if taxes merely discourage the young from developing obesity, that's not a mark against it.

I find it hard to believe such ideas. It would mean that, somehow, a body that has not been overweight wastes 20% of its energy intake every day.

Moreover, if you subtract the energy loss that must take place due to the temperature difference between body and air, the muscle efficiency of such persons must be extremely more efficient.

Surely, evolutionary pressure must have been able to optimize that away?

I find it more likely to believe that people who become overweight tend to be less inclined to be active, and that that does not change when they do lose weight.

It's entirely possible the study had flaws, but the idea is not without evolutionary precedent. It's my understanding that some orangutans are similarly specialized to prioritize rebuilding fat stores, given an environment of intermittent plenty.

There was a better system proposed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light_rating_system The food industry lobby went into overdrive http://www.europa-nu.nl/9353000/1/j9vvikqpopjt8zm/vispi8icgj...

Idea was to have a sticker on each and every product, so you wouldn't have to check the back of products for kcal, sugar, fat etc, like so http://i.imgur.com/F8T7P.jpg

Reply on news.ycombinator.com