Originally Posted by Triumph
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@Ralath
The difference between regulation of alcohol consumption and something like soda consumption is that no matter how much soda you drink, other than feeling extremely disgusting/potential death, your judgment is still relatively unclouded. Compare that to alcohol, where (assuming you don't die) high consumption of alcohol impairs your judgment quite noticeably.
Governments can step in because in the latter case, people can get hurt, but no one (other than the fat person) gets hurt from someone being fat. We're ignoring the fact that if an 800 pound person fell on you, you might get injured, but that's exceedingly rare.
It's definitely a health problem, but a) the government has no legal jursdiction over this and b) what you said in the second part of your post will just happen.
There's a sale on 32-oz fountain drinks at QuikTrip right now, funnily enough.
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These people are costing us untold billions in unnecessary healthcare costs, either through government subsidized healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid) or through the increase in payouts of private insurance. This also puts a strain on limited medical time and resources. So, in short it hurts my wallet and puts a strain on doctors, causing potential physical harm to me.
The only problem I have with the proposal is that there seem to be loopholes that let the larger distributors get away with more, thus unfairly squeezing out smaller businesses.