Does This Tax Make Me Look Fat Analysis

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Title In “Does This Tax Make Me Look Fat” by Jeff Osborne, the author considers John Ridley, Eric Topol, and Governor Jan Brewers idea to place a tax directly on the overweight persons to reduce the national problem. After considering their solution to creating a smaller proportion of obese people in the U.S., Osborne gives his readers insight on how he feels about their perception of the problem (647-648). Although both of the gentlemen as well as the Governor pose a sound plan, Osborne argues, their proposal is highly unlikely to raise revenue and make humans healthier (648). Even though Osborne does not agree with the strategy of placing taxes on overweight humans, he does express the evolving concern for the obesity complication …show more content…
Being overweight is the root of a number of health risks. While there many more, the most common are, type two diabetes mellitus, hypertension and strokes. Type two diabetes mellitus is the inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin due to the excessive body fat. When BMI increases, it becomes harder for the body to make the insulin demanded for survival. If Pi-Sunyer’s statistics are correct, then “there is a strong positive correlation between the average weight in a population and the presence of type two diabetes mellitus” (467). Thus meaning, as average weight increases, the appearance of type two diabetes becomes more common in individuals. Another crucial illness that Obesity creates is hypertension. Someone is considered hypertensive if their blood pressure is over the normal systolic and diastolic ranges (Pi-Sunyer 468). A normal blood pressure has a systolic range of 116 to 120 and a diastolic range of 60 to 80. Hypertension is said to be any blood pressure with a systolic range of 120 or above with a diastolic range of 80 or above. The risk for acquiring hypertension increases with the amount of time one is overweight. In the book Eating Disorders and Obesity, the author of the article “Medical Complications of Obesity in Adults”, collected data from the U.S National Health Examination II Survey and he concluded, “… the prevalence of hypertension in persons 20% or more overweight was twice …show more content…
However, those who are obese tend to go to one of these health care facilities more than others, on behalf of their derived chronic illness or illnesses and health costs are on the rise. According to Daviglus, “obesity is responsible for at least $90 billion in direct U.S. health care costs annually” (R97). His statement implies that, $90 billion dollars or more, is spent every year to treat people in the obese crowd, alone. Moreover, in a recent issue of Health Affairs, it was founded that the cost for hospitalized obese children has almost doubled from 1999 to 2005, starting at about $126 million and increasing to around $238 million (Krisberg 6). By including this in her article, Krisburg communicates just how expensive obesity is, but the people who are paying the majority of these high costs are,

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