Obesity, health costs, and taxes

The Times's David Leonhardt writes about obesity, health costs, wages, and taxation. It seems hard to believe his statistics on the real price inflation of healthy foods over time versus the deflation of the price of soda, but I'll believe his fact-checker. (I would have imagined both probably were falling; maybe the issue is a transitory uptick in the former muddies the comparison.) But he certainly makes a nice case for a tax on obesity-inspiring food products like soda, given how the tobacco tax is typically used these days.