Essay about A Fat Tax: Economic Costs of Obesity are High

There is what has been referred to as "obesity epidemic" in Australia today. This trend affects everyone it the society; whether it be directly or indirectly. One particular concern within the "at risk" segment is children. The young in our society do not have the capacity, either mentally or the physical resources, to make their own informed decisions about their dietary consumption. Children are generally dependent upon their parents or institutions to provide them with the foods that they consume. Therefore, this group above all others deserves some level of protection against a lifestyle that can potentially have negative consequences for their health that can stay with them for a lifetime.

More than 35% of American adults are obese and as a consequence, are at increased risks for health issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes ("Overweight & Obesity"). The U.S. taxpayer is supplementing much of the cost to treat obesity related health issues through public health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ("Economic Costs"). A positive externality will occur in the form of decreased health care expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. government should impose an excise tax on soda and other beverages that contain sugar. Consumers who drink excess sugary beverages impose a negative internality on their health; as well as imposing a negative externality on the American

Over the previous decades, obesity has developed into a major global epidemic. In the United States, more than two-thirds of adults are overweight and one-third is obese. Research to date has accepted at least four main groups of economic influence linked with the obesity epidemic. Direct medical costs, productivity costs, transportation costs, and human capital costs are all prime examples. Although more complete analysis of costs is needed, large economic influences of obesity are identified in all four categories by existing research.

Science and medicine researcher, Matthew Herper, discusses the expenses of obesity in his article, “The Hidden Cost Of Obesity.” He says, “The economic cost of all this extra fat is immense. Direct medical costs are easiest to calculate, coming in at $93 billion, or 9%, of our national medical bill,” (Herper). This quote shows that obesity is a costly disease and the expense of it is accumulating to billions of dollars in bills. Herper goes into even more detail about costs when he discusses the social costs of obesity when saying, “Obese people miss more work, costing employers something on the order of $4

It finally came! Ok, well, it was actually in the mailbox since yesterday and I hadn 't checked it until today... Nevertheless, it came! Yes folks, I have bought into this recently resurging fad, as I have with many trendy diets, and, as I 'm sure many of you reading this have, as well. We are always in search of that magic pill that flips a switch in us and makes us shed our flabby shells. This diet plan, strict as it may be, is selling itself as such; I plan to try and find out why. It seems HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin) is everywhere you turn lately; health food stores, magazine racks, your neighbors ' blog. If you enter it into the search engine the brand sponsored "top ten lists", the many hundreds of venders and the company funded "safety review" sites come flooding at you by the hundreds of thousands; making an already difficult decision spiral into chaos. For those of you who are of baby boomer and older age, you may recall this being popular when you were younger. Now, to answer a nagging, yet presumably distasteful, question: yes, this is that same diet you heard of when you were younger wherein pregnant women sold their urine to doctors so they could harvest the hormone. This derivative of prego-pee was then injected into hopeful masses of women looking to drop a sizeable amount of weight without having to stick their fingers down their throat or take "diet pills", which were then simply over-glorified, medically manufactured, fancy meth by prescription.

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. This fact is known that we need to do something about our health and obesity rate. An option that has been brought up time and time again is the Fat Tax. This would be a small tax applied to fatty and unhealthy food. Ideally, this tax would decrease consumption of things like fast food. Despite the well intentioned idea, things like this don’t always work. The Fat Tax would cause impoverish people to fall deeper into financial trouble and cost the government more on welfare as well as well as barely decreasing the actual obesity rate.

During this period, a continuous reduction in underweight with a simultaneous increase in obesity has been reported (Trishnee & Jeewon, 2014). In the United States (US) alone, medical costs related to obesity have risen from 78.5 billion a year in 1998 to 147 billion annually in 2008 (Trishnee & Jeewon, 2014). If current trends in obesity prevail, total healthcare costs attributable to obesity could reach up to the range of $861 to 957 billion by 2030 in the US (Trishnee & Jeewon, 2014).

The modern-day epidemic of obesity in America is destroying lives and bankrupting the government. Reuters reports, “Obesity in America is now adding an astounding $190 billion to the annual national healthcare price tag” (Ungar 2012). This number is so high due to hospital costs and prescription drugs. The number even exceeds the medical costs due to smoking. Fortunately for the government, smokers die earlier and save the government money on things such as Social Security, private pensions and Medicare. (Ungar 2012) However, obese people tend to live almost as long as those who have a healthy weight and require more medical care throughout their lives, which costs the government substantial amounts of money.

This next article goes more into depth of the higher medical costs of being obese. According to Mokdad and associates in 2003, obesity has increased nation-wide by 74% between 1991 and 2001 (p. 242). The article goes on to state that in 2000, overweight and obese Americans cost the economy around $117 billion with $61 billion going to direct medical costs. Reading further into the article, it points out many diseases that can affect a person for a lifetime; because of that,

This extra weight has led to an increase in chronic diseases such as diabetes and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (Leonhardt). Obesity is not just a “nice” or “correct” term for people who suffer from this ailment; Obesity is a dangerous medical condition that can lead to life-threatening diseases such as diabetes or even cardiac arrest. To make matters worse, diabetes does not kill fast. The estimated annual cost of healthcare for diabetes is $147 billion, approximately $1250 per household mostly in taxes (Leonhardt). This further expands the problem of obesity from a health to an economic spectrum that affects not only the sick but the healthy in a very direct way. A sugar tax will help alleviate the burden if the money raised is used towards paying the health care of the sick as well as reduce the cases of obesity and diabetes. A problem that not only pays itself but is reduced as time goes on. A penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would lead to a 10 to 20 percent decrease in consumption and a 1.8 to 3.4 percent decrease in diabetes cases from 2013 to 2022. This decrease alone could save Americans between $320 million to $630 million in medical costs (O’Connor). Although not a major decrease in diabetes cases would follow up with this tax, the impact on the economy would be drastically reduced. A sugar tax would be just the beginning of a much bigger movement towards a healthier

The fat tax as a surcharge is placed on unhealthy foods and drink in trying to overcome increasing obesity rates.For the population of overweight people has expanded rapidly and the increase of the health implications in recent decades, obesity has become a growing global health issue.According to the World Health Organization (WHO) provides the facts on obesity , including that in the year 2005 about 1.6 billion adults were overweight and the amount obese children who were under five years old was at least 2 billion in the world.The consequences of obesity also shown by the WHO, which mainly about the health impacts such as contributing to the risk of the coronary heart disease and musculoskeletal disorders.(Shah,2010) To alleviate this problem , an increasing number

Obesity’s presence has reached much larger magnitudes than ever before in human history. 33% of adults and above 20% of children in the U.S. are classified as obese as concluded by Duke University (“Over a Lifetime”). Although obesity appears to be strictly a medical problem, many new studies are showing that obesity is linked to numerous factors such as society, technology, politics, and economics. As a result of multifarious fields, reducing childhood obesity in the U.S. is not a simple task; rather, the solutions to reduce obesity must tackle many different fronts. One of the greatest contributing factors towards the growing rate of childhood obesity is economics. Although childhood obesity is a growingly

Findings show that 17 states tax candy at a higher rate than other groceries, and four states collect an excise tax on soda. For example, tax sweetened beverages like soda and energy drinks a penny per ounce would likely to be effective to prevent the childhood obesity. Such tax could potentially prevent about 2.3 ponds per year of weight gain (Brownel & Frieden, 2009). Alyson Kristensen, who is a lead investigator of Partnership for Prevention, says that the “fat” tax reduces obesity

Obesity is an epidemic that is sweeping the United States at a rapid speed, and it kills. Obesity is responsible for killing more people than anything else, except for smoking. It affects people of all ages, races, income levels, and geographic locations. Obesity brings with it a myriad of problems that the individuals who suffer from it face, as well as social problems that are felt by people in all walks of life. There are astronomical costs that are attributed to it, being paid by society in the form of medical fees, unemployment benefits, and other miscellaneous costs. This report proposes that these costs and problems need to be addressed, and one avenue through which they can be is a junk food tax. This report

Globally, about one in three people get little physical activity in on a regular day. Even at work, at home, and as they travel from place to place. In 1950, 30 percent of Americans worked in high-activity occupations and by 2000 that proportion had dropped to only 22 percent (“Physical Activity”). Conversely, the percentage of people working in low-activity occupations rose from about 23 percent to 41 percent. Also, since technology is advancing people worldwide are doing less of it. Physical activity levels are declining because people have video games, cell phones, television to keep them busy. People couldn 't shop online and receive their package on their doorstep, and now people can. This is something people use to do on a regular basis (“Obesity and Exercise”). Children and young adults lack exercise because the are inside playing video games or watching television. Video games are advancing that kids do not even think about stepping out of their room. Parents sometimes encourage that by bringing them food to their room and not motivating them to play outside. About 40 percent of U.S. schoolchildren walked or rode their bikes to school in 1969. By 2001, only 13 percent did so ("Physical Activity."). Some people do not have a membership to a gym because they do want to be judged and do not have the confidence or motivation to go. Being overweight can be reduced with help, eating healthy and exercise.