$1 Million Grant To Study 'Fat Taxes,' Diet, Obesity, Received By UIC

Hope a fat tax is paying for the study.

"Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have received $1 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study the relationship between "fat taxes" and food consumption, diet quality and obesity.

The funding for the two-year project was made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The study will link state tax rates associated with restaurants and with specific sugar- and fat-laden foods and beverages (soda, candy, baked goods and chips) to individual survey data.

Using multiple data sets from a 10-year period -- 1997 through 2007 -- the researchers will determine if differential tax rates equate to differences in consumption, diet quality and body mass index, or BMI, for children, adolescents and adults...

Current fat-tax rates are fairly low, ranging, for example, from 0 to 7 percent for soda."

And therein lie two problems.

1. Group punishment.

2. Fat people are neither targeted nor taxed high enough.

There is a proper way to do a fat tax and save the study money.