Forget terrorism, the biggest risk to society as we know it is still on the loose. There for all to see, in every State, in every City, in every Suburb on every second street corner. We know it's there. The government knows it's there. Yet whilst we send thousands of troops overseas and spend millions of $ trying to protect us from threats on the other side of the planet, this vicious killer is allowed to roam free. Feeding off our weaknesses, growing unabated into the supreme killing machine.
I logged onto facebook the other day and noticed someone had put a link on my wall to MacDonalds giving free food vouchers to users. Then I turned on the television to watch the cricket, the KFC sponsored T20, when i saw an ad for $1 cheeseburgers at MacDonalds and I thought, WTF is going with our country when you can buy a cheeseburger for less than a mango?
Obesity linked diseases are by far and away the biggest cause of death in Australia. As a nation we have now overtaken the US as the most obese per capita in the western world. The cost to our healthcare system in treating obesity related diseases is in the billions of dollars and yet despite this and a myriad of other obesity related issues, fast food giants can still sell cheeseburgers cheaper than water.
Enough is enough, surely? Solutions to the problem form a list as long as the issues themselves but for the purpose of this article I want to focus on only one. A Fat Tax on all fast food companies. In Australia we tax Gambling, Tobacco, Alcohol, Petrol and we're even about to start taxing mining which does nothing but provide jobs and prosperity for the nation and yet fat food giants, who are at the very least guilty of being an accessory in the deaths of millions of Australians get off scot free.
As a Personal Trainer, if I know an exercise is bad for a client, but I perscribe it for them anyway and they injure their back, I am liable for negligence. In fact in almost all facets of all industries, this is the case. Not fast food!
Why are Fast Food giants not made to compensate the billions of $ taxpayers are forced to pay out to clean up the mess that they create? Why are we not taking a portion of their profits and putting it towards educating parents on the harm they are doing to their children? Why are we so focused on gambling when being able to pay $1 for dinner is only leaving more money in pockets to be used on other addictions.
Taxing Fast Food will not stop people eating it. It will not stop obesity. It will however provide some form of accountability on these mass murderers. It would ease budget pressures. It would allow for more health programs to be funded. The longer the government fails to act the more of a murder accessory they become.
IMPOSE TAXS ON FAST FOOD NOW
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