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It worked with cigarettes.  Now some are thinking it may work for food -- tax those who eat too much. Well, you're not taxing the people, per se, but the calories they eat. A story today at The Washington Post notes that "an increase in the price of a calorie regardless of its source would improve obesity outcomes,” according to a working paper that three researchers prepared for a private, nonprofit bureau, according to Peter Whoriskey. The main culprit for one out of three Americans being fat or obese?  Low food prices, Whoriskey reports.  If we raised the taxes on sugary drinks, fast food and junk food, would people stop buying it, as they did cigarettes? No one quite knows, but could you really tax something people need to live?  I suppose you could say we don't need Big Macs or giant Slurpees but the fear is that raising the prices on some foods probably would raise them on all, like fruits and vegetables, too, making them too expensive for many to buy, ...

OK, we've been talking about low-balling calories when we try to figure out how much we're eating.  But guess who does it the most?  Teenagers! CBS News reports today that they're the ones most guilty of underestimating just how fattening what they're eating might be. The answer's pretty simple.  Where do teens mostly eat? "We found that people, especially teens, are consuming more calories than they think they're getting when they eat fast food," lead researcher Dr. Jason Block, of the Harvard Medical School/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, said in a press release , as CBS News notes. While adults underestimate calories by about 20%, and parents of school-age children by 23%, teens do it by 34%. That's an awful lot of french fries and Big Macs and Strawberry Hand Spun Shakes unaccounted for.  Which is kind of interesting when you compare that to the young teens you see that weigh barely more than a sponge. Surely they're not the o...