Yesterday, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) and ParticipACTION unveiled a series of new physical activity recommendations to encourage Canadians to become more physically active.
And that’s good.
I am a big fan of health promotion / disease prevention.
Problem is… these recommendations are toothless.
They’re just talk.
What’s the point of setting new exercise guidelines if you don’t support them up with initiatives to convert those guidelines into actual physical activity?
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We already know that we “should” exercise
We already know that we “should” eat healthier
We already know that we’re fatter than ever
We already know that our kids are fatter than ever
We already know that we should reduce stress, sleep 8 hours, take our vitamins…
We already know this stuff
What we need is:
Legislation & funding to re-introduce phys-ed classes into our schools
A re-organization of gov’t food subsidies to improve our food supply
A non-partisan discussion about applying “sin” taxes to junk food
Marketing campaigns designed to promote a healthy lifestyle
Tax credits designed to reward individual behaviors that promote health, prevent disease and reduce healthcare costs
Tax credits for community fitness groups
And the only way we’re ever going to get what we need is to pressure/embarrass our politicians into doing what we want.
sad but true
So, in that spirit, I am asking you to apply some pressure on your politicians by sending them an email (include a link to this article) asking telling them that we need to get serious about health promotion / disease prevention.
To make things a little easier, I am including a list of state/provincial government departments responsible for health promotion.
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Alright, here it is – the third and (perhaps) final installment of my “how do we cure obesity” series.
For those that missed, here are parts one and two.
In part one, I made the argument that if government intervention into our collective problem with obesity is ever going to work, we need to….
Enact junk food taxes
Implement tax credits that promote health/fitness and a rocking set of abs.
Keep the junk food taxes separate from general tax revenues
Funnel those tax revenues to the sort of grassroots projects that are close to the people that actually need the support and who can do it cheaper & better
In part two, I argued that if we let the government and their “experts” make the decisions about which foods get taxed and which programs get funded…this program is doomed. Political agendas trump common sense.
It’s our government and our tax dollars. And if we want to change how those tax dollars are being spent, we need to get more involved and force our politicians to make the changes we want. And thanks to the evolution of social media, we already have the technology required to create an effective political campaign driven by “normal” people. It’s already worked for the Obama presidential campaign and the Tea Partiers.
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But first, we need some ideas to rally around.
So, in today’s post, we’re going to do a bit of a brainstorming session. Hopefully we come up with some great ideas.
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Junk Food Taxes
Which foods get taxed?
Who decides what is “junk food” and what isn’t?
These are the two big questions regarding junk food taxes that I keep bumping into around the internet. Here are my suggestions:
At least initially, we tax only the most obvious junk foods – potato chips, candy, twinkies, soft drinks, pizza, nachos, ice cream, deep fried nuggets of all sorts…
Those obvious junk food choices are made by the general public via online polling.
Tax Credits / Government Spending
What do we do with all of that junk food tax money?
We fund programs and activities designed to improve our health & reduce our obesity
We base funding on participation & results rather than promises & expense
That way we end up funding the programs that give us the most bang for the buck.
For example, the idea of tax credits for gym memberships is being discussed in jurisdictions all over North America. Unfortunately, legislators are taking the approach of offering a flat rate tax credit to taxpayers who purchased a health club membership.
My problem with that approach is that health clubs thrive on members who sign up, show up for a month or two and then disappear…while continuing to pay dues. That’s good for the health club but bad for the health & waistline of the health club member.
My suggestion is to base the tax credit on participation.
With this model, we would see the creation of grassroots fitness clubs all around the country.
What else can we do with the junk food tax money?
We can fund:
Urban farming
Urban grocery stores that carry healthier food choices
Farming designed to produce nutrients rather than calories
Organic farming
Drug free meat (or at least almost drug free meat)
We can also amend our current food subsidies in order to promote “healthy” food production. A little less corn & soy and a little more fruits & vegetables. A little less factory and a little more farm
Anything else?
If we are going to spend tax dollars on feeding our kids at school, we should make sure that that food is designed to promote their health. The current setup doesn’t work. Too much bureaucracy and political interference.
Bring the decision making process back down to the grassroots level. Get parents involved. Get the kids involved.
Keeping the junk food taxes separate from general tax revenues
Up here in Canada, politicians sold us on a gasoline tax by promising that the money generated by this tax would be plowed back into the infrastructure of our roads.
Makes sense right – drivers paying for the roads they travel on via a consumption tax.
The only problem is that the tax revenue was dropped into the black hole of general tax revenue…and our roads continue to crumble.
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If we’re going to increase taxes under the guise of improving health & reducing obesity, then we should demand that those tax dollars be spent as promised.
Grassroots Projects v.s. National Programs
Perhaps it’s the libertarian side of my personality, but I firmly believe that the best type of charitable or social service programs are those that are community based.
For example, in my hometown of Toronto, a number of urban farming groups and farmers markets have sprung up in the last couple of years. People are plowing under their backyard lawns and planting rows of organic vegetables. Some people are even pushing for bylaw amendments so that they can keep chickens in a backyard hen house.
All in an attempt to improve their own health.
Meanwhile the federal Canadian government spends millions on advertising (online, print, radio & tv) telling us that exercise is good for us. As if we didn’t already know that exercise is good for us.
And they do such a half-assed job with this advertising.
seriously…does this get you excited to exercise?
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How do we get people excited about health & fitness?
Last week, a billion or so people skipped work so that they could stand in line for hours and hours just so they could buy an Apple iPad. And most of those people bought the iPad because it was the cool thing to do. They already owned an iPod and an iMac. They didn’t need an iPad…but they sure as heck wanted one.
What Apple did was turn that want into a need.
That’s what we should be trying to do.
Make health & fitness sexy
Make us crave that fit body
Make us need to have a six pack.
If the government is going to spend money on using media to motivate us to exercise & eat right, maybe they should hire the marketing gurus at Apple to design the marketing strategy.
Yesterday, I outlined a few ways that we can use the powers of government to help “cure” obesity.
Today, I am going to expand on one of those ideas a little bit.
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To begin with, I think we can all agree that most of us are strongly motivated by pain and pleasure.
We try to avoid pain and we try to get as much pleasure as possible. Our government representatives know this and make us of it to shape our behaviors.
For example: taxes.
No one wants to pay taxes. But most of us want to avoid getting hauled off to jail even more. Ergo, most of us pay our taxes.
This takes me to Idea #1 – Sin taxes on junk food.
At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer. We discourage consumption of junk food while simultaneously increasing tax revenues. It’s a real win-win.
Except for one little problem.
Which foods are we going to tax?
And who is going to make that decision?
Politicians?
Scientists?
If so, which ones?
The low-fat gurus who have been designing our food pyramids for decades
To be honest, I don’t trust this decision to any of our nutrition “experts”.
Big egos + big money usually = big problems for the taxpayer.
But, I do trust my mom.
And, I bet you trust your mom as well.
In fact, I trust your mom more than I trust those experts. Heck, I even trust you more than I trust those experts.
I bet that just about everybody reading this article already knows what kinds of food are good for them and which foods are really bad for them.
I bet that if I asked you (and the other readers) to make a list of 10 types of food that we should tax in an attempt to “cure” obesity, I bet we would see a lot of overlap and we would be able to come up with a consensus pretty quickly.
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Alright, there we go. I knew you could do it – a Junk Food / Fat Tax list as chosen by the people and for the people.
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Democracy in action.
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Now we just have to pressure our politicians into doing what we tell them to do…and wait for all of that fat tax money to come rolling in.
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Yesterday, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) and ParticipACTION unveiled a series of new physical activity recommendations to encourage Canadians to become more physically active.
And that’s good.
I am a big fan of health promotion / disease prevention.
Problem is… these recommendations are toothless.
They’re just talk.
What’s the point of setting new exercise guidelines if you don’t support them up with initiatives to convert those guidelines into actual physical activity?
.
Disease Prevention, Exercise, Fitness, government, Health, Health Promotion, healthcare, I Wanna Be Healthy, Obesity, politics, preventative medicine
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Alberta Health, Canada Alberta, Community Fitness, Csep, Disease Prevention, Exercise Guidelines, Exercise Physiology, Food Marketing, Food Subsidies, Food Supply, Health Promotion Canada, Healthcare Costs, Healthy Lifestyle, Marketing Campaigns, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Ontario Ministry, Participaction, Phys Ed Classes, Provincial Government Departments, Sin Taxes, Sport Manitoba 
Themocracy