Junk food tax urged to fight obesity

Suggestion brought to you by the same folks in part responsible for overweight/obesity.

A junk-food tax and consistent monitoring programs are some of the government actions needed to combat what has become an obesity epidemic in Canada, says an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The editorial, published Tuesday, also calls on Ottawa to ban certain foods and ingredients, regulate salt in foods and improving serving-size and nutrition labelling.

The 2007-09 Canadian Health Measures Survey found more than 60 per cent of adults were overweight or obese, with 24 per cent overweight and 37 per cent obese.

A junk-food tax, or "sin" tax, could help reduce the consumption of high-fat foods and drinks, said Sonia Grandi, coauthor of the editorial and Cardiology and Clinical Epidemiology researcher at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.

What was it Shakespeare wrote?

Oh yeah, something like, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the doctors who meddle with total ignorance in matters of weight loss and fitness, e.g., the Canadian Medical Association."

Yeah, it was something like that.