Let's fight obesity the way we fight smoking

But this may not be the whole story. Even among thin people, who wouldn’t be affected by the surcharge (and who therefore might even see lower health insurance premiums, although the survey may not have explained that), support for the fat tax fell short of a majority. Why? Smoking is seen as being completely in the individual’s control, whereas obesity is viewed as a result of a combination of complex factors…

There’s one other aspect to smoking that finally tipped public opinion over, making it possible for state and local governments to enact regulations and laws that drove down rates of smoking: secondhand smoke. When non-smokers began to feel that their health was threatened by the behavior of others, they were willing to make life more difficult for smokers and impose strong financial penalties on them.

Maybe it’s time to be at least a little more willing to similarly demonize excess poundage. Our rapidly rising rate of obesity harms us financially, because we pay for health care collectively. Insurance premiums paid by the healthy subsidize the care of the sick. That means we are all paying for the costs of treating obesity and that treatment is one of the things that is helping to send health care spending through the roof. The war on smoking worked because it made smoking shameful and the public health measures needed to fight it permissible. It may take an even tougher approach to combat obesity, beginning with the recognition that it’s bad for all of us.