Tax Soda, Subsidize Vegetables. To be effective, scientists say junk food taxes must be very high | SciGuy. In the past year Denmark introduced a “fat tax” of approximately $1.29 per pound of saturated fat, which kicks in when the saturated fat content of a food item exceeds 2.3 percent. The tax adds about 12 cents to a bag of chips, 39 cents to a small package of butter and 40 cents to the price of a hamburger. Other countries have tried related measures to stall rising levels of obesity. Hungary has a “junk food tax,” and France a tax on sweetened drinks. Peru and Ireland, among other countries, are also considering such taxes.
If you tax it, tax it big. In the United States, with a history of tax protests dating back to the Boston Tea Party, most people do not generally favor a junk food tax. Nevertheless an increasing chorus of public health scientists are saying that’s what needs to happen. Other experts, commenting in the British Medical Journal, now conclude that the taxes, in order to be effective, need to be high. Thus, to have a measurable impact, taxes need to be very high. Billions in Tax Dollars Subsidize Junk Food Industry. Childhood obesity rates have more than tripled in the past 30 years, an alarming public health development that is contributing about $150 billion a year to the overall cost of U.S. health care. Almost one in five children aged six to eleven are seriously overweight, making them highly vulnerable to heart disease, diabetes and other serious illnesses. At the same time, Congress and the Department of Agriculture are spending more than $1.28 billion annually to subsidize the crops that are used as additives in manufacturing cookies, candies, soda pop and other highly popular junk food that arguably are among the primary contributors to childhood obesity.
The sweet, fatty and calorie-rich Hostage Twinkies alone contain 14 ingredients made with highly subsidized processed ingredients, including corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch and vegetable shortening. What’s wrong with this picture? A new report released on Wednesday by the U.S. Junk Food Tax Could Improve Health. Taxing junk food may help reduce obesity and improve health, researchers have found. Patients got significantly less of their energy (calories) from soda or pizza when there was a 10% increase in the price of either (P<0.001), Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. "Policies aimed at altering the price of soda or ... pizza may be effective mechanisms to steer U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet and help reduce long-term weight gain or insulin levels over time," the researchers wrote.
Talk of a soda tax has sparked debate across the country, particularly in New York and Philadelphia, where such legislation is currently under consideration. However, not much research has been done to study how price changes would affect health outcomes. Price was also significantly associated with total energy intake, body weight, and HOMA-IR scores (which measure insulin resistance). Tax junk food, not fruits, vegetables and baby food | NMPolitics.net. Photo by Heath Haussamen The Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce (GACC) recently proposed that New Mexico re-impose the tax on food.
If the GACC wants to raise taxes, a wiser strategy would be a targeted tax on junk food, rather than making necessities like fruits, vegetables and baby food more expensive for New Mexico families. Governor Richardson and the Legislature thankfully abolished the food tax beginning in 2005. The tax had been enacted in 1933 as part of a “temporary” and “emergency” measure. In 1958, 41 states taxed food. Today, that number has dwindled to only two: Alabama and Mississippi. The trend toward repealing the tax on food has been accelerated in part by the recognition that the food tax is a weak foundation on which to base essential government services.
In the decade before the repeal, for example, revenue from the food tax grew at only a 1.7 percent annual rate, according to the Taxation and Revenue Department. A regressive tax How about taxing junk food? Junk Food Tax Must Be Fat, or Don't Bother, British Study Says. With more than two thirds of adults overweight or obese, America is certainly straining the scales—but we're not the only ones.
Countries around the world are trying everything to solve their own obesity epidemics, even if it hits their people's wallets. Several countries, including Hungary and Denmark, have implemented nominal "fat taxes" on unhealthy foods, France has an extra tax on sweetened drinks, and Peru plans to implement a junk food tax in coming months. But a new paper released Tuesday in the British Medical Journal says that in order for such taxes to be effective, they have to make consumers dig deep—only "fat taxes" of 20 percent or more are likely to have broad societal impacts.
Proponents argue that junk foods are vices like alcohol and tobacco, which both have large taxes attached to them in many countries. [How the Government Can Curb Obesity] [Study: First Graders Don't Like to Play With Fat Classmates] In America, such taxes have run into industry opposition. Regulations do change eating behavior. My monthly, first Sunday column in the San Francisco Chronicle: Q: I still don’t get it. Why would a city government think that a food regulation would promote health when any one of them is so easy to evade?
A: Quick answer: because they work. As I explained in my July discussion of Richmond’s proposed soda tax, regulations make it easier for people to eat healthfully without having to think about it. They make the default choice the healthy choice. Telling people cigarettes cause cancer hardly ever got anyone to stop. Economists say, obesity and its consequences cost our society $190 billion annually in health care and lost productivity, so health officials increasingly want to find equally effective strategies to discourage people from over-consuming sugary drinks and fast food. Research backs up regulatory approaches. Research also shows what sells food to kids: cartoons, celebrities, commercials on their favorite television programs, and toys in Happy Meals. Should Congress enact taxes on obesity-producing foods? Yes. By Ronnie Cummins Posted: 05/13/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT America's industrial food and farming system — dominated by fast-food restaurants and processed, chemical-laden food — has precipitated a public health crisis.
Although nutritionists recommend that consumers avoid eating unhealthy junk foods, every day 75 million Americans "supersize" themselves and damage their health by eating at fast-food restaurants. Forty percent of American meals are now bought and consumed outside the home, typically consisting of high-calorie, low-nutrition items such as soft drinks, French fries, and low-grade meat laced with fat, cheap sweeteners, pesticide residues, chemical additives and salt. We have become a Fast Food Nation of bulging waistlines and high blood pressures. Recent studies link pesticide residues and chemical additives like MSG in processed foods and restaurant fare to hormone disruption and obesity.
. • One in every three children born since the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. 'Fat Tax': Experts Argue Taxing Unhealthy Food and Beverages 20% Will Lead To Health Benefits. To gain control of expanding waistlines worldwide, unhealthy foods and drinks need a 20% fat tax, along with subsidies for healthy food, experts say in a new paper published online in the British Medical Journal. Oliver Mytton, of the British Heart Foundation’s Health Promotion Research Group, and his colleagues at the University of Oxford conducted a review of about 30 international studies to determine the effect that food taxes — which are levied at a higher rate on food items considered unhealthy — have on public health.
The team concluded that fat taxes can improve outcomes — but only if they put a significant dent in consumers‘ wallets. “Economists generally agree that government intervention, including taxation, is justified when the market fails to provide the optimum amount of a good for society’s well-being,” writes Mytton. (MORE: Fat Forecast: 42% of Americans Could Be Obese by 2030) More and more countries are adopting fat taxes in an effort to curb rising obesity rates. Fast Food: The Fast Track to Organ Damage. <br/><a href=" US News</a> | <a href=" Business News</a> Copy "Welcome to Fast Foods! How can we destroy your internal organs? " It's not very catchy, but fast food restaurants may as well update their greetings, considering the negative effects their food can have on our health, our hearts and, now, our livers. In a new study, 18 slim, healthy Swedish men and women took on a fast food diet, eating meals from popular chains twice a day for four weeks while refraining from exercise.
At the end of the experiment, blood tests showed evidence that the subjects eating fast food had liver damage. They also had gained an average of 16 pounds. The subjects were eating "an outrageously high amount" of calories, said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. A Super-Sized Problem The liver processes fats in the blood. Back to Normal Dr. The Soda Tax Gamble: Will It Really Make Us Healthier? The taste of soda may be sweet, but the potential consequences of those empty calories — obesity, diabetes, higher mortality and skyrocketing health care costs — are not. In response, many states and cities in recent years have proposed taxes or other initiatives intended to reduce consumption of sodas and other sweetened drinks.
One proposal commanding a lot of attention is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed “soda ban,” which would prohibit the sale of sweetened beverages greater than 16 ounces — including sodas, sports drinks and sweetened coffees and teas — in restaurants, food carts, delis and concession stands at movie theaters, stadiums and arenas. The “ban,” which is scheduled to be voted on by New York’s board of health this week, would not apply to soda sold in supermarkets or convenience stores. “It’s a Catch-22,” says University of Pennsylvania nursing and epidemiology professor Karen Glanz. Sharing the Pain According to Kelly D. Making a Difference — But at What Cost?