Agreed. As someone who is trying to manage weight/exercise, I don’t think injecting more money will make a difference for me. I keep having the intention to join the gym or buy those skates to go skating, but that 15B is not going to do squat to get me off my butt.

Exactly my point. Obesity is (for the most part) a lifestyle issue, and while building more swimming pools, more tennis courts, and more large square rooms to fill with stair steppers, treadmills, and funny looking bicycles that don’t go anywhere no matter how long you peddle, may sound good the net result is simply more swimming pools, more tennis courts, and more large square rooms to fill with stair steppers, treadmills, and funny looking bicycles that don’t go anywhere no matter how long you peddle.

If the government is willing to spend that sort of coin it would probably be better spent in making sure that real food^tm costs less than garbage food. Here in Ottawa I can get a fat laden burger, salt covered fries, and a sugar filled soft drink — and have them biggie sized for me — for about $3 less than I can pick up a soup and salad combo.

I’ll tell ya right now, the thing that motivated me to change my diet, get active, and shed some pounds, was not the availability of a recreation facility in my neighbourhood, it was the smack up the side of the head that comes with realizing that

[a] a couple of family members developed type II diabetes
[b] I wasn’t getting any younger
[c] sh*t was going downhill fast

That $15b works out to a little over $450 for every man, woman, and child, in Canada - my plan cost no where near that.

My plan cost $10 for the 10-speed bike I bought from a rummage sale down the street, it paid for itself in the first week from what I didn’t spend on bus tickets.

– the rest of the plan cost less…. I quit buying sugar and foods that contained it.

My suggestion is that it is not the governments job to help me lose weight, it’s not the governments fault I got it so why should I expect them to help me get rid of it?

What is the governments job is to make me aware of the problems I am letting myself in for if I don’t make better choices - and they should be able to accomplish that for less than $15b.