No matter how much you tax the food, people will find a way to become fat. If it was up to the government to determine what foods qualified as "fattening" enough to be taxed, they'd either get it wrong, leave loopholes, or fast food restaurants will resort to using artificial substances which would be just as bad, or even worse, than ordinary fattening foods.
You talk like people want to get fat. Yes, people will get fat anyway, but if they have to focus on eating unhealthy foods to do it, that's good. Seriously, who's going to be looking at loopholes to find the least healthy foods available?
McDonald's will be looking for loopholes so that they can still serve "delicious" food.
here's something that you guys are neglecting:
Go to your grocery store, go into the cereal aisle. If your preferred grocery store is anything like mine, you will see a part of the aisle dedicated to health cereals, and the remaining part of the aisle containing normal cereal. Pick up a box of the healthy cereal. You may notice that it's price tag has a number almost 3X that of the fruity pebbles 4 feet down the shelf.
Next, purchase the healthy cereal. In addition, purchase a box of any of the normal cereals - the one that looks the most appealing to you. This part of the experiment is over. Moving on...
You're at home. Bust out your gallon of milk and enjoy a serving of delicious normal cereal. Savor each bite because what you're about to do next is going to ruin your day. After you enjoy a few bites of the normal cereal, pour yourself some of the healthy stuff and dig in.
You may notice that it tastes horrible. Actually, if you're taste buds work properly, you will definitely notice the horrid flavor. This is the end of the experiment.
Conclusion: You just paid 3X more for cereal that tastes horrible when you could have just gotten froot loops instead. Healthy food sucks.
1. Not all "healthy" cereal tastes horrible. A majority of the population thinks it tastes bad because the sweet, sugary cereals taste a lot better. Also, both "healthy" and "sugary" cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals. That being said, there certainly are some very bland "healthy" cereals that taste extremely bland.
2. The reason people are inclined to purchase and consume unhealthy food is because of the way they're marketed. Monolithic corporations like Coca-Cola spend millions on advertising each year, while I have yet to see more than one or two fruit commercials on any media form. (Come to think of it, I don't remember the last time I saw a TV, internet, or magazine ad for ANY fruit or vegetable.) In addition, if you notice where the "healthy" cereals are (top of the grocery shelf) and look where the "unhealthy" cereals are (lower shelves at toddlers' and young children's' eye levels), you might realize that kids are forced into wanting the brightly-packaged, sugary cereals from an early age.
Praise be to commercialism.
Win by luck, lose by skill.