Fat Tax — What Do You Think?

Possible Problems with the Fat Tax

Of course, some assert that the tax won’t work, that people will eat the same amount of butter, lard, meat, and chips that they would eat anyway. And, so, that it’s just a raising of prices. However, I think the fact that the revenue will go into obesity programs, alone, means it will be useful in reducing or limiting obesity, which is it’s main goal.

Some are concerned that it will affect domestic food producers more, since they have to count the saturated fat they use in making their products and distributors only count what’s in the final product. That seems like an odd difference, and unfair if true.

Organic dairy producers and advocates are concerned the organic industry will be more hurt as it will be less able to absorb the price increases (due to smaller profit margins) than industrial producers, meaning the relative cost of organic products will be even higher than it already was.

There’s also the argument that reducing saturated fat consumption won’t make much of a difference. “They based their decision on a report written in 2001,” Dr. Arne Astrup, professor of human nutrition at the University of Copenhagen, says. “In 2001 all the available evidence suggested that we could achieve significant benefits by cutting saturated fats. But it turns out that a lot of that benefit came from cutting transfats, not saturated ones.” (Something, as already mentioned, Denmark already did.)

U.S. Food Policy

As already stated, such a tax in the U.S. would be essentially impossible at the moment. Just look at the huge controversy over the “Happy Meal Toy Ban” in progressive San Francisco. And take a look at our federal food policies, which encourage eating junk food, exactly opposite what our federal dietary guidelines recommend:

  1. USDA Encourages You to Eat Junk Food
  2. USDA Doesn’t Follow USDA’s Own Advice on Dietary Guidelines

The U.S., clearly has a problem. But we’ve also got considerable democratic and political problems that make addressing our obesity epidemic in a systematic way a little unlikely.

And so, we go back to David Cameron’s comment: “look at America, how bad things have got there…. Yes, that should be a wake-up call.” Seems the rest of the world is using it as one.

Fat Guy Photo via Mr TGT

 

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By Zach | November 7, 2011 | Food & Water, Health | 3 Comments |
  • http://liferope.co LifeRope Green Guide

    I totally agree. We need a fat tax. It’s for our own good. It’s one tax that makes sense above all others. We should not be fed sugar, corn syrup and aspartame every time we take a bite of something. We need to know what’s in our food and if people are going to kill themselves, literally, with a poor diet which will raise health insurance costs, then we should tax those foods to pay for those costs.

  • john

    It’s for our own good Really??? What would be for our own good would be for parents to actually raise their children with some logic and self control.

  • Eric S

    While it may help slightly, it won’t be the cure. Look how much cigarettes are taxed, yet people still smoke. People are addicted to junk food because they like it. If it costs more they will still likely buy it.

    I would be more in favor of a tax on Trans fats than saturated fats. The trans fats are the very unhealthy fats.

    I think foods that contain more than a set number of grams of trans fat, sugar, or salt per ounce of product should be taxed. At the very least it could help certain food manufacturers to offer healthier choices.