Name 1

Name
Tutor
Assignment
11 June 2013
Tax on junk food to combat obesity
Obesity is a sort of eating disorder that takes place as a result of eating excessive fast
food and drinking lots of soft beverages which is one of the seven sins of Christianity and in turn
is similar to the sins of drinking alcohol or taking drugs. Its a well-established psychological
phenomena that punishment contains our actions and encouragement promotes them. Tax on any
item follows the above principle of containment and ultimately the results are achieved. Taxing
fast food restaurants and sugary is not an issue but the debate is whether this type of tax will be
an effective measure to combat obesity or not?
Taxing tobacco and alcohol, led to increase in prices which ultimately proved effective in
reducing their consumption while taxing unhealthy, low value nutrition and low quality junk
food will definitely yield the same results. There exist an assessment that if tax on high fat foods
is imposed that will force people to substitute their calorie diet by reducing 25% consumption
(Frieden, Dietz and Collins). Supposedly if 2% tax is imposed on burger, pizza and fizzy drinks
that would raise the prices of the burger, pizza or drinks which will bring more pressure on the
purse of an overweight customer and since individuals response to prices, Higher tax will
produce greater benefits to combat obesity (Leabharlainne and Oireachtais). These obesity taxes
are becoming a hot cake in policy making around the globe. In France, tax on soda drink is

Name 2

expected to be imposed by around 20% besides Denmark has already levied tax on food with low
value nutrition.
Taxing fat food is one part of the picture where governments use taxes and influence the
behavior of people but on the other hand governments are required to subsidize something to
balance out the effects. So, besides taxing unhealthy food, govt. should also subsidize healthy
and nutritious food such as fruits, vegetables, meat and fish etc. so, that healthy food is
affordable to everyone otherwise taxing unhealthy food will dismantle the balance of diet for the
poor who could only afford unhealthy and cheap food for their survival (Ebbeling, Pawlak and
Ludwig).

Works Cited
Ebbeling, Cara B, Dorota B Pawlak and David S Ludwig. "Childhood Obesity: Public Health
Crisis, Common Sense Cure." 10 August 2002: 10.
Frieden, Thomas R, William Dietz and Janet Collins. "Reducing Childhood Obesity Through
Policy Change: Acting Now To Prevent Obesity." Health Affairs 2010: 8.
Leabharlainne, Seirbhis and Taighde Oireachtais. "Obesity a growing problem?" Spotlight 6
(2011): 16.