{"id":6297,"date":"2014-06-18T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=6297"},"modified":"2014-06-16T12:07:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:07:47","slug":"should-your-junk-food-be-taxed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/06\/should-your-junk-food-be-taxed.html","title":{"rendered":"Should Your Junk Food Be Taxed?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2014\/02\/ID-100151605.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5946 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2014\/02\/ID-100151605-300x296.jpg\" alt=\"ID-100151605\" width=\"300\" height=\"296\" \/><\/a>We know that obesity is a global epidemic and that something has to be done to curb the eating of most Americans.<\/p>\n<p>One solution being proposed is to tax junk food. This would mean government would decide the winners and losers of food? Hmmm&#8230;.how did they do picking energy companies? Can you say Solyndra? \u00a0I am not feeling the love for this idea!<\/p>\n<p>Denmark gave it a try and taxed foods high in saturated fat. This strategy did not change consumer behavior. And people are growing weary of government poking their nose into private aspects of their lives. Go fix Medicare and take care of our vets. Stop the overreach and work on the tasks you already have to do!<\/p>\n<p>More important is the idea that government can regulate individual choice when it comes to food. If they try, watch for the black market for burgers and fries!<\/p>\n<p>The solution? Take personal responsibility for your health and what you eat.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of constantly looking at government to fix things (consider the track record of this strategy), educate yourself and make better choices. When it comes to losing weight and being healthy, individual responsibility is high on the list of winners. This also means that parents should care for their kids by eating healthy in the home. And consider the fact that a two-year-old can&#8217;t walk into McDonald&#8217;s and order fries!<\/p>\n<p>Is it easy to resist all the junk food available? No, but if you don&#8217;t buy it, you won&#8217;t be tempted to eat it. We can say NO with our money! We can make healthy choices!<\/p>\n<p>So no, my junk food should not be taxed. I should stop buying it and eating it. But the idea that I might actually be responsible for my own choices seems to be an idea getting little play these days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know that obesity is a global epidemic and that something has to be done to curb the eating of most Americans. One solution being proposed is to tax junk food. This would mean government would decide the winners and losers of food? Hmmm&#8230;.how did they do picking energy companies? Can you say Solyndra? \u00a0I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[918],"tags":[2919,2920,2921,256,2917,2918],"class_list":["post-6297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-food","tag-choice-and-responsibility","tag-food-choices","tag-government-regulating-food","tag-healthy-eating","tag-junk-food","tag-taxing-junk-food"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should Your Junk Food Be Taxed?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/06\/should-your-junk-food-be-taxed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should Your Junk Food Be Taxed?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We know that obesity is a global epidemic and that something has to be done to curb the eating of most Americans. One solution being proposed is to tax junk food. This would mean government would decide the winners and losers of food? Hmmm&#8230;.how did they do picking energy companies? Can you say Solyndra? \u00a0I&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/06\/should-your-junk-food-be-taxed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-18T11:00:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-06-16T16:07:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2014\/02\/ID-100151605-300x296.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Should Your Junk Food Be Taxed?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/06\/should-your-junk-food-be-taxed.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Should Your Junk Food Be Taxed?","og_description":"We know that obesity is a global epidemic and that something has to be done to curb the eating of most Americans. One solution being proposed is to tax junk food. This would mean government would decide the winners and losers of food? Hmmm&#8230;.how did they do picking energy companies? 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6297"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6317,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions\/6317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}