The Ways Of A Healthier Country

In America today one in three adults are considered to be obese. Over the years the rate of obesity keeps climbing up and up. Some people blame fast-food or the environment Americans live in. After all,someone can purchase a chocolate bar at a bookstore nowadays. But, most people are looking at the incorrect factor to blame. Although the food industry is a huge contribution to obesity in America, people are ultimately responsible for their own health.

Improving the health conditions of the American population ensures the increased quality of life. People eat for various reasons with the fundamental reason being for survival purposes. However, the issue of eating to live and living to eat affects people in different manners as most people develop poor eating habits that affect the body’s nutritional intake and affects their health. Being healthy involves careful considerations of what one is eating and engaging in activities that contribute to better healthy lives that do not imply daily prescriptions or

Sin taxes account for approximately 4.5 percent of Texas’ state tax revenue (Litten). Tobacco taxes can be divided into two categories: cigarettes or cigars and other tobacco products. Cigarette taxes in 1931 where as low as three cents a back, but now the state has raised the taxes to $1.41 per a pack of cigarettes (Minton). Alcoholic beverages are taxed based on the type of alcohol, for example, liquor, beer, wine, and malt liquor. Also each alcoholic beverage have a mixed beverage sales tax and mixed beverage gross receipts tax. These taxes have shown a trend of being reduced throughout the past 4 years.

Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Puritan community defined sin as anything that “deviated from the highest aspirations of the Puritan founders” (“Reading the American Past” 68). The Puritans attempted to create a godly community by trying to diminish what they considered sins. They most certainly failed at creating this type of society.

One of the Healthy People 2020 initiatives or goals that I want to discuss is sexually transmitted diseases. According to Healthy People 2020 (2015) their goal is to “promote healthy sexual behaviors, strengthen community capacity, and increase access to quality services to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and their complications.” One of their objectives in this area is to reduce HPV (human papillomavirus) infections females. I would hope to reduce the incidence of this infection by promoting safe sex, health screenings and immunizations to adolescent and adult women. Certain subtypes of HPV can lead to cervical cancer and anogenital warts (Pomfret, Gagnon Jr, & Gilchrist, 2011).

Smoking-related illnesses like emphysema and lung cancer place an enormous drain on the system, and are mostly preventable.” (Livestrong.com Par 1) People do not want to pay taxes for those that will abuse

I believe that becoming a healthy American depends on ones self ;and how people want to see themselves later on down the road . If ones desire is to live longer and enjoy the good ness of life then a good health starts from what is ingested into ones body.However, i dont blame fast food restaurants for this epidemic of obesity and other deseases ; i blame it on the person who makes the choice . In addition a person who makes healthier choices of foods are more leaner more energetic and overall,more healthy internally. Appose to someone who eats with unmeasured precautions are overweight and internally deseased. I blame people who are obese and sick for the choices they decided to make and that they continue to make and for their lack of will

Every 6th person in America doesn’t have enough food to eat to stay healthy. Everyone can relate to how people take food for granted, or how much food people waste, and even knowing how to help the hungry. I want to help and so does everyone else who cares about the people in need, starving or not. Why does no one want to help the world? Why is this happening? How will I make a difference?

Nick Gillespie. "The U.S. Should Implement a Sin Tax to Increase Budget Revenue." Opposing Viewpoints: The Federal Budget. Ed. Amanda Hiber. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Bucks County Community College-OVRC.

One cause is genetics some people are prone to more illnesses and diseases than others. Lifestyle choices of whether to eat health, exercise, drink water, and see a doctor regularly can make some people healthier than others. A person’s income and access to health care can cause them to be health or unhealthy. Formal education has a positive effect on the health of an individual. A person with a strong support system can have better health due to the support and assistances they can provide. The physical environment can negatively affect a patient’s health if they are in an area without easy access to health care, or work with carcinogens.

Is the law sin? Is it bad? No, the law is good; sin takes advantage of the law and distorts it.

There are many cities who have implemented bans on cigarettes, but China overall is still the leading consumer of cigarettes in the world. A countrywide tax on cigarettes has been proposed to their Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Economics and Trade, but a decision has yet to be made. Tobacco production provides substantial revenue to the government and a tax increase will have a significant effect on the central government and reduction of consumption of cigarettes. According to a study done by the group proposing the tax, “a 25% tax increase will have an overall monetary benefit that far exceeds the negative impact on the cigarette industry and tobacco farmers. In financial terms alone, not counting the number of lives saved and medical care cost savings, the gain of the central government tax revenue (24.58 billion Yuan) twice exceeds the loss of tobacco farmers’ earnings, tobacco industry workers’ earning and loss of industry and local government revenue (11.74 billion Yuan)” (Hu TW 107). There many components to this calculation, but some factors included the reduction of cigarette consumption, the number of lives saved, savings in medical care costs, gains in productivity due to avoidance of premature death, industry revenue lost, lost jobs in cigarette industry, loss of tobacco income, and loss of local government

“Sin” taxes have been proven as a way to curtail known unhealthy behaviors. Soda taxes are most accepted if taxes collected are earmarked for health specific programs (Chaufin et al., 2010). The cons are the consumers are the voters and taxing may equate to loss of votes, taxing may not be equitable to individuals that do not have the disease, and finally, an undue burden may be placed on lower socio-economic demographics as these groups often have limited access to food vendors that primarily sale what would be considered taxed foods. Though these sin taxes are proven to work well with tobacco and alcohol consumption, altering a persons’ diet needs to be more individualized and realistically approached. Lower socio-economic individuals should not feel added burden as a tax; which would be a negative impact (Kuchar et al., 2005). Legality issues are regarded as low, but would require state government support to enact. This would likely not be popularly accepted and have a minimal impact for any increase in tax rate.

Most commonly, sin taxes are excise or consumption taxes that charge fees for guilty pleasures or human indulgence. (Lorenzi, Sin Taxes 60) Sin taxes, therefore, are intended to encourage citizens to consume or use taxed items responsibly or discourage behavior associated with the consumption of taxed items. Goods or services generally taxed through sin tax policy have some common characteristics including inelastic demand, promote behavior that is harmful to the individual, and promote behavior that is harmful to others. (Lorenzi, Sin Taxes 60) Goods or services targeted by sin taxes have an inelastic demand because they are generally habitual, addictive, or highly pleasurable. (Lorenzi, Sin Taxes 60) Further, these goods or services are targeted by sin tax legislation because consuming or utilizing the good or services can lead to self-destructive behavior, negative consequences for communities, and generally are considered socially undesirable. Thus, sin taxes are not prohibitive; citizens are allowed to consume targeted goods and services as long as the tax is not steep enough to make consumption of the good or service impossible. (Viscusi 556) Further, the voluntary nature of sin taxes is generally more tolerable than involuntary nature of income taxes. (Schmidt, Barr and Swanson 1677)

On the one hand, Piglovian taxes are certainly a useful function in that they may serve to deter a certain type of individual from perpetrating the crime or social offense (e.g. smoking, traffic violation, and alcohol). These individuals would typically be those who are low-risk in nature (not willing to run the risk of being caught), concerned with their money and unable to afford the economic consequent of being caught, rational (in stat economic issues factor higher than the emotional drive of being on a high does), and likely of a certain age (since adolescents, for instance, are more likely to remain undeterred by rational consequences and absorbed in the thrill of the moment.)