"Obesity costs the US healthcare system almost $173 billion a year."

So that's about 6% of the difference? I'm not immediately saying no, but it sounds like that's not the real problem.

conductr 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Social reasons it would never work. I hate to mention anything race related online but simple truth is America has complicated history and African Americans are 30% more likely to be obese than White Americans and also earn approximately 60% of income that whites earn. A fat tax, especially one that properly allocated the cost burden to the individual, would erode race relations.

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nradov an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That 6% number isn't even close to accurate. There are many other very expensive chronic conditions that are downstream of obesity including type-2 diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, MSK injuries, etc. We are digging our graves with our teeth.

	▲	epicureanideal an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Although I tend to think we overwork the working class such that they have no energy to keep up their health, so this would basically be taxing them because they're poor in many cases.