BethFromVA

When historians look back to identify the pivotal moments in the nation's struggle against obesity, they might point to the current period as the moment when those who influenced opinion and made public policy decided it was time to take the gloves off. As evidence of this new "get-tough" strategy on obesity, they may well cite a study released today by the Urban Institute titled "Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies From the Tobacco Wars." In the debate over healthcare reform, the added cost of caring for patients with obesity-related diseases has become a common refrain: most recent is the cost-of-obesity study, also released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It finds that as obesity rates increased from 18.3% of Americans in 1998 to 25% in 2006, the cost of providing treatment for those patients' weight-driven problems increased healthcare spending by $40 billion a year. If you happen to be the 1-in-3 Americans who is neither obese nor overweight (and, thus, considered at risk of becoming obese), you might well conclude that the habits of the remaining two-thirds of Americans are costing you, big time. U.S. life expectancies are expected to slide backward, after years of marching upward. (But that's their statistical problem: Yours is how to make them stop costing you all that extra money because they are presumably making poor choices in their food consumption.) "Facing the serious consequences of an uncontrolled obesity epidemic, America's state and federal policy makers may need to consider interventions every bit as forceful as those that succeeded in cutting adult tobacco use by more than 50%," the Urban Institute report says. It took awhile -- almost 50 years from the first surgeon general's report on tobacco in 1964 -- to drive smoking down. But in many ways, the drumbeat of scientific evidence and the growing cultural stigma against obesity already are well underway -- as any parent who has tried to bring birthday cupcakes into her child's classroom certainly knows. Key among the "interventions" the report weighs is that of imposing an excise or sales tax on fattening foods. That, says the report, could be expected to lower consumption of those foods. But it would also generate revenues that could be used to extend health insurance coverage to the uninsured and under-insured, and perhaps to fund campaigns intended to make healthy foods more widely available to, say, low-income Americans and to encourage exercise and healthy eating habits. If anti-tobacco campaigns are to be the model, those sales taxes could be hefty: The World Health Organization has recommended that tobacco taxes should represent between two-thirds and three-quarters of the cost of, say, a package of cigarettes; a 2004 report prepared for the Department of Agriculture suggested that, for "sinful-food" taxes to change the way people eat, they may need to equal at least 10% to 30% of the cost of the food. And although 40 U.S. states now impose modest extra sales taxes on soft drinks and a few snack items, the Urban Institute report suggests that a truly forceful "intervention" -- one that would drive down the consumption of fattening foods and, presumably, prevent or reverse obesity -- would have to target pretty much all the fattening and nutritionally empty stuff we eat: "With a more narrowly targeted tax, consumers could simply substitute one fattening food or beverage for another," the reports says. Of course, the United States also would have to adopt extensive menu- and food-labeling changes that would make "good foods" easily distinguishable from the bad ones subject to added taxes. Not to worry though: Several European countries, most notably Great Britain, have led the way in this area. And here's the payoff: Conservatively estimated, a 10% tax levied on foods that would be defined as "less healthy" by a national standard adopted recently in Great Britain could yield $240 billion in its first five years and $522 billion over 10 years of implementation -- if it were to begin in October 2010. If lawmakers instituted a program of tax subsidies to encourage the purchase of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, the added revenue would still be $356 billion over 10 years. That would pay for a lot of healthcare reform, which some have estimated will cost as much as $1 trillion to implement over the next ten years. There can be little doubt that lobbyists for the food, restaurant and grocery industries would come out swinging on any of these proposals. But the report cites evidence of a turning political tide for proposals that would hold the obese and other consumers of nutritionally suspect food accountable for their choices. A recent national poll found that 53% of Americans said they favored an increased tax on sodas and sugary soft drinks to help pay for healthcare reform. And even among those who opposed such an idea, 63% switched and said they'd favor such a tax if it "would raise money for health-care reform while also tackling the problems that stem from being overweight." Tough love for fat people: Tax their food to pay for healthcare (Fixed) | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times

Interesting birth control pill. Rather than changing the ovulation process, it just plain makes you not want sex. :crying:

I have already tried for grants or scholarships. Right now I don't qualify because of what he makes. I can't even get a subsidized loan. :crying:

And that's where I'm at. Life is too short for this. The thing is, I'm not even mad anymore. I'm just resigned. And that's a very different, life-changing place to be. There were times in our relationship where I told him that I was hanging by a thread, that my promise to God when I took my vows were the only things keeping me there. Now I don't even have that.

Thank you, Tap. You made me cry, but not in a bad way. I think I have tried SO hard to make this work that I have lost myself. I gave up on me to try to redeem US, and in the process all I did was lose me AND us. If I ever had us...

What I understand less is why those who are offended by what is being said here CHOOSE to come here and be offended??? MOVE ALONG!! :crying:

Neither is an easy situation. I've already been without work for four months, the length of a semester. I haven't heard a thing from anybody. I could sit out another term, lose another semester, and be no better off than I am right now. My thought is why not go to school? At least then I'm working towards my degree rather than languishing here at home doing nothing and not getting hired. I have thought, if I hear back from the agency for that job, I will take it. At least it brings me in an income and I can start planning the financial end of what I need to do. If I don't get it, I figured it was God's way of telling me to go back to school. I have put it in His hands and said He needed to make the decision for me because I can't. Originally, because it's gotten so close to the wire, I had thought that even IF this job came through, I would probably just go forward with school because I have mentally geared myself for it. However, that changed as of this weekend. Maybe that was in the plan.

Thank you, Mac. You shoot straight from the hip like I do. I always had my suspicion, but I couldn't prove it. I believed it for sure had to do with all the music he was coming home with because there was SO much. But I couldn't prove the other. Now I all but have the proof. I have written the person who told my source to get it straight from the horse's mouth, but so far she hasn't written back. I assured her that it will never come back to her, and because of my visit and having gone back to my old job with tons of people, there's no way to prove who told me and trace it back to her (she's the daughter of my old boss, who has known DH since he was about 12 years old and was like a surrogate mom to him). This is why I believe it's true, because of where it originated.

Honestly? I think for security. And I tried SO hard to make it work and keep loving him. My best friend said this weekend that I can honestly walk away and say I tried everything. I believe she's right.

Thank you, Ebony. On top of everything else, I believe I would be mentally and physically better off without him to boot. He certainly isn't super supportive with my weightloss -- he is superficially for ME, but if it infringes on HIS eating, he does things that I feel are self-serving. And I think I've been sad and depressed with this relationship for so long that I have never been able to see straight. It wasn't until we got together that I gained ALL this weight, and though I don't blame him, I see the correlation. Of course I am going through this with no job, but I hope if I can keep my nose to the grindstone and get my degree, it might make the difference in about 16 months or so. The other thing that really hit me during this trip is that my friend, who has had a couple doozies for husbands herself, came full circle and is with a guy she has known since they were both 9 years old and who she dated a while as a teenager. Omg, they LAUGH, they PLAY, they are SO LIGHT together!! Her second husband reminds me of my husband -- serious, dour, pessimistic, not involved... Watching what she finally got made me realize what I don't have and haven't had for 18 years. If you knew me in real life, you'd see how happy-go-lucky I am, how much I LOVE to laugh and make people laugh (not the persona you often see here), and I don't have that anymore. I met some online friends while I was in Houston, people I've been chatting with for years. One guy I've been writing to for over 9 years, and we finally got to meet! I asked them if I surprised them, and I did. A number of them said that I am very straightforward and stern and rigid at times online, but in real life they could see that I didn't project that persona. And it's true. I don't know why I'm two different people like that, but I have often said to people online who I haven't gotten along well with that if they met me IRL, they'd probably love me. lol Maybe online is where I take out my frustrations, which isn't great, but it's all I can figure.

We've been through SO much counseling during this marriage that I feel more married to a counselor than I do to him. Sometimes you can't keep patching the boat because too much water keeps seeping in. Besides that, he argues with the counselors. He could exasperate Ghandi. I just feel... dead. Granted, it was some years ago that this happened, but I still get reverberations from his Kuwait job, hearing how bad it was for HIM (never mind how bad it was for US over here), blah blah blah. I don't give a shit about how bad it was for him. As for his relationship with DD, he's ruined that on his own. He really wasn't a good dad to her, and I was so busy putting out fires and trying to do counseling with him that I didn't realize just HOW bad he was until she moved out and he turned all his nit-picky neurosis on me. He never reaches out to her, never talks to her, nothing. He's just a bastard. Sorry, but that's how I feel. And now it's like it has come full circle.

Removed just cuz.

Apparently in their world, it's also okay to be a pedophile so long as you can sing and dance. If there were half the evidence against some average guy that there was against Michael, I bet everything I own that they would be judging that guy guilty of attacking children.

Plain's hearing is a tad off. He heard somebody say he was LOUD and thought they said ENDOWED. Tsk tsk. What a let-down that must be. :thumbup:

Hey, y'all, finally back from Houston. Not EVEN gonna try catching up. I came in on page 927 and read up until 935 and said forget it (it went to page 945 by the time I quit). The best I could do was skim posts for anything from Ebony to say she finally got the job of her dreams. I myself haven't heard anything YET (though the LAST time I talked to the agency, the company was supposed to know by the end of LAST week... :thumbup:). Have proceeded to sign up for full-time classes, however. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! They are much appreciated. If you had a good week, congrats. If you had a bad week, I'm sorry. If you had a birthday, happy birthday! I have to say my visit was not great. Unfortunately, my best friend (who I stayed with and who I had to rely on for transportation) pretty much monopolized my time, to the point where she had the nerve to try to guilt me into going out with her Saturday night rather than realizing I wanted to spend it with DD and DGD. I came home crying to DH about it all, saying I was pissed at myself for not being more forceful, and disappointed that too many times that kiddo and I were supposed to hook up, it didn't happen for one reason or another. I swear we only had a couple hours' one-on-one time with nobody else around. I'm really rather incensed at my friend, and I'm not dealing well with that. I've never really been mad at her, and we've been best friends since 1990. I felt she was being very selfish, to say the least. I've already determined IF there is a next time (and I don't just pay for kiddo to come here), I WILL GET MY OWN HOTEL AND RENT CAR and then I ALONE will dictate who I see and for how long. I'm just so mad I'm almost crying again. Sorry to be a downer, but I know y'all are good listeners. Oh, and I found something out while I was there that is likely to make me leave DH. Not an affair, but something that is almost as bad, imo. I'm in a really dark, sad place right now. :skep:

Which "A" word, "adults" or "along"? :thumbup:

Yes, precious, I know. My mama tells me that every time I kiss her. :thumbup: Bless your little heart.

Then they shouldn't come into the Rants and Raves board and post on a thread dissing Michael Jackson, Obama, or the Easter Bunny and complain that they're dissing said object of discussion. Like I said previously, it's like going into an adult bookstore and complaining about all the porn. As for the cursing, if it insults your sensibilities and all, I can STILL show you how to use the ignore feature. It seems you need a lesson. :thumbup:

I haven't been rude to "everyone in this posting." I certainly haven't been rude to the people who use some intelligence on this or any other thread. I blasted that person because they were so stupid they came into a thread titled "A Michael Jackson RANT" and then proceeded to complain about the topic rather than skipping their happy little rear over to the love-fest thread. People who are that ignorant do not deserve any better than what that person got. As for "not getting into it with me," good idea. If you need help, I can tell you how to utilize your ignore feature. Thanks for stopping by. Buh-bye.

When people put all their shit out there for the rest of us to sniff, you're damn tootin' we have a say in what we think about it! There are those of us who truly believe he was a pedophile. Are you saying that's okay? It should be overlooked because of who he was? Because he could sing and dance like a performing monkey? Seriously?? :thumbup:

I have no idea what in the hell you're talking about. As for meeting me, don't worry, it'll never happen. I can't be bothered with certain types.

Wow... do you believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa too? :skep:

>sigh< For the umpteenth time, innocent until proven guilty is a legal term. It does NOT count in the court of public opinion. Just like I believed since day one that OJ murdered his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. Still do. Even did the day they read the not guilty verdict from that moronic "jury."

You mean we should all be weird-assed pedophile drug addicts? Um, no thanks.

So long as you didn't spray fish out your nose. Cuz that would be so... gross... :thumbup: