Would Fat Tax Actually Counter Obesity?

There have been numerous arguments to whether fat tax would actually help counter obesity. Some say that this tax would simply hinder underprivileged, and others believe that it would deter people from buying high-calorie food. The items that would be taxed are unhealthy foods or foods that contain especially unhealthy ingredients, sugar-sweetened drinks, or empty calorie snacks.

Taxing foods that have a high fat or sugar content does pose its challenges. Not every food that contains fat is bad for you. For example, foods like nuts which are considered healthy but contain a high amount of fat would be included in this tax. However, it also has benefits because taxing foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup “could encourage manufacturers to use fewer unhealthy additives and produce healthier, tax-exempt products”.

A snack tax may be the most doable option. Snack foods usually contain empty calories and are processed. But on the other hand, determining exactly what foods would be included in this snack food tax would be difficult. Also, only adding a tax on snack foods may not counter obesity substantially enough to be considered successful.   

Sugar-sweetened drinks “may be the single most important driver of the obesity epidemic”. Adding a tax on these types of drinks “would substantially reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and related conditions”. Taxing sugar-sweetened drinks would also most likely generate the largest amount money compared to taxing snack foods and foods with high sugar or fat contents. Although, simply taxing sugar-sweetened drinks “would not reverse obesity trends by itself,” but would presumably cause less of the population to become obese or diabetic.

The size of the tax must also be considered. Studies show that a small tax would not make a big difference to the “obesity epidemic”. However, a tax of twenty percent or greater would decrease obesity and the number of diabetics especially if that money was used to fund health education and subsidizing healthy foods.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828689/