This past year I picked up a mild smoking habit. I say mild because it’s laughable to call it a habit: I went from being a soap-box anti-smoker, to becoming an occasional social/stress smoker (replete with a really personally embarrassing/toolish situation in which I mooched a cigarette from a friend … and proceeded to smoke it backwards).

In Nepal, though, I starting smoking a couple cigarettes a day. This was not out of some belated rebellion to my cancer doctor parents, or an attempt to look cool (haven’t we already established that I am not, nor will ever be, cool?). This was because cigarettes cost less than a dollar a pop.

As I mentioned, my parents are cancer doctors. While the perils of smoking were never drilled into my head by my parents — Truth.org did that for them — the perils of eating meat, dairy, sugar and anything with a high cholesterol or fat content were. Yet while I’ve been consuming French fries, donuts and all manners of artery-clogging greasy goodness since I could toddle, my silly flirtation with cigarettes was short lived, thanks in most part to the recently imposed smokers’ tax. It’s a lot easier to rationalize slowly killing yourself at 80 cents a carton than it is when a carton costs about four times as much as a cup of coffee.

Arguably, it’s not just cost keeping people away: junk food is much yummier than cigarettes, and there have never been any lengthy campaigns telling you not to eat it. While junk food has taken the hit, and being fat is definitely not fashionable, obesity is still too touchy a subject to be vilified in the same way that smoking is. We have yet to have a War on Hamburgers.

But that might finally change, hallelujah. Behold the Fat Tax.

I apologize if I come off as offensive. It’s definitely not the most P.C. of tax names, although it definitely has a nice ring to it. We could call it the curb-the-obesity-epidemic tax, the think-twice-before-you-eat-another-quarter-pounder tax, or the stop-practically-breast-feeding-your-children-so-that-they-grow-addicted-to-carbonated-liquidated-sugar-and-get-type-II-diabetes-which-everyone-else-will-then-have-to-pay-for tax. But even if those are more accurate, they are way too many words to fit in one mouth — even a Supersized one.

Let’s look at the facts: The number of obese Americans now outweighs the number of fat Americans. This is going to put an even bigger strain on health care, Medicare and Medicade costs, which fluctuate between 127 and a trillion dollars, depending on whom you ask. According to John Ridley in The Huffington Post last Friday, that’s an added $1,250 in taxes per year … a fairly hefty sum, especially if the family in question isn’t benefiting. Eric Finkelstein, the health economist, argues an additional indirect cost to companies, both through “presenteeism” — reduced productivity while at work, caused by obesity-triggered slothfulness — or “absenteeism,” missing work due to obesity-related diseases, depression or lethargy. In other words: calling in fat.

Are my fat puns inappropriate? Perhaps. But isn’t that our major problem with curbing obesity in the first place? In a society where smoking is appropriately bedeviled and preaching to smokers is, if somewhat self-righteous, still tolerated, why is no one pointing the finger at the actually frighteningly obese?

After the movie Supersize Me came out, it finally seemed like this attitude might change, and it did in small but important ways: McDonalds changed its menu to include carrots and apple slices, schools finally started educating their students on healthy eating choices and, overall, people became more health conscious. But while I still see about four anti-smoking ads a day, I have never seen an infomercial with lots of obese people in body bags while teenagers on loudspeakers yell at fast food executives. In fact, the only people on my TV telling me to eat healthier are trying to sell me food.

To me, government-based initiatives to curb obesity sound just peachy. But to many, taxing fat — either the food or the people directly — makes you a bully, a communist or both. However, families with smaller incomes — below the upper-middle-class but above the poverty line — are more likely to be obese. This is unsurprising, given that a healthy lifestyle costs much more than an unhealthy one. Aside from gym costs, diets and the always expanding get-thin-quick industry, healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. Taxing unhealthy food levels the playing field — giving public schools and families incentives to buy whole grains and vegetables will slim the socioeconomic obesity gap even more.

Slate writer Daniel Engber — and others of kindred ilk — argue that by imposing these legislations, we’re just making the overweight feel worse about themselves in a society where they are already made to feel unattractive. But there’s a difference between idolizing anorexic supermodels and encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Besides, haven’t we been making smokers feel bad about themselves for years? Do we really assume that smokers are less sensitive than fat people?

Tax the fat. Tax the food. Tax the freaky Chicken McNugget mascot at McDonalds who looks, honestly, more like a big blob of fat than anything else. I don’t care whom or which — just tax them. Not only will it save us a load of money, it may finally encourage people to think before they a big gulp.