| Summary: | In this lecture Levmore likens current problems with obesity in the United States with smoking as it was in the 1960s. He explaind that anti-smoking measures were intensified by the discovery of the harm done by second-hand smoke, when it was proved a danger. Regulations to decrease smoking took the form of higher taxes on cigarettes and with each raise in taxes, smoking rates went lower. Thus the government aided some smokers who wanted to quit, not by doing anything directly to them but by making it more difficult to smoke. Obesity, he says, may likewise be affected by the taxes on and availability of fattening food. In countries where food taxes are high, obesity rates are lower than in the United States. Levmore does predict that obesity regulation is unlikely because of interest groups who have an interest in lower food taxes. Both smoking and obesity regulations are basically the government assisting the citizens with self-control
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