The Intervention Of The Food And Beverage Markets Should Be Motivated By The Health Crisis Of Childhood Obesity

In 2009, a prestigious think tank in Washington, D.C. proposed a 10% tax on what they called “Fattening food of little nutritional value.” They stated that based on their study, such a tax could raise 500 billion dollars in tax revenue over 10 years, which could be put towards paying off America's ever expanding national debt (Waist). Americans spend an extremely disproportional amount of money on health care costs related to lifestyle diseases. In recent years, Americans spent $190 billion on healthcare related to obesity, which is over one-fifth of total annual healthcare spending (Baird). Because Americans would have more money to spend, a tax on fattening foods and beverages could promote economic growth for private businesses and an increase in revenue for the

Eating healthy has become a thing of the past. In the essay by Mark Bittman “Bad Food? Tax it, and Subsidize Vegetables Instead” offers an idea on how to change the Standard American Diet: making healthy food cheaper and fast, processed food more expensive. Calculating the tax to increase one penny would make a difference in the price and the decision for the people as to whether or not the people are will purchase processed foods. He explains that taxes on carbonated drinks and processed foods should increase due to the amount of money it would bring into the government, and the benefits of a healthier American. Bittman’s results remove chronic health diseases that reinvent the way we eat. In “Nickle and Dimed on Not Getting by in America,”

According to the WHO (World Health Organization) the health of the people in the United States has not always been the greatest. With an obesity rate of 33.9 percent, which translates into over 106 million obese Americans, this has caused many problems to arise and impact the daily lives of Americans. Many have tried to help in regards to this issue by improving school foods or attempting to encourage more physical activity. Unfortunately, these may have helped but only in a small scale. However, a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Mark Bittman believes that he may have a definitive solution. On May 25, 2016, in “Taxing Sugar to Fund a City” New York Times food journalist, Mark Bittman, by using the taxing of sugary beverages in Philadelphia - America’s poorest big city - earnestly

There has been an increased availability, accessibility, and affordability of food, this could explain the excess energy intake and weight gain among different populations. In addition to the easy access to food, there has also been decreased opportunities for physical activity in the recent years. Researchers have proposed a range of interventions to reduce obesity, these include, restricting the advertisement of unhealthy foods to children, improving school meals, using taxation to reduce consumption of unhealthy foods and providing subsidies to increase intake of healthy foods, and supply-chain incentives to increase the production of healthy foods (The GBD 2015 Obesity Collaborators.

For this reason, I believe there is great need to campaign for new legislation and social programming that addresses the following supportive evidence for obesity resolution. According to Frieden, Dietz, and Collins, implementing legislation that heavily taxes unhealthy food will help reduce consumption of these foods. Decreasing the cost of healthy foods, subsidizing farmer’s markets in underprivileged areas, creating zoning legislation that prohibits the building of fast food restaurants in the vicinity of schools and recreation areas, prohibition of unhealthy food advertisements directed at children, requiring restaurants to offer healthy food options for kids with the nutritional information listed on the menu, increase active transportation and recreation, and improve physical activity programs will also reduce childhood obesity (Frieden, Dietz, & Collins, 2010). The difficulty in implementing these solutions is monetary and political. The businesses negatively affected by these changes will fight against them and the cost of subsidizing groceries for the impoverished areas will cost.

Today, research asserts soda is one of the leading causes of poor health outcomes in the United States. People define soda as carbonated beverages, or soft drinks, or fizzy drinks. A significant relationship exists between the consumption of carbonated drinks and obesity, type 2 diabetes and dental caries in the United States (Gollust et al., 52). Tax on soda is considered as a government’s intervention to regulate the consumption of these kinds of drinks. In fact, soda should be taxed in the United States because it discourages the consumption of soda, makes people healthier, and raises government funds.

In a society where diseases such as diabetes and obesity are pervasive, action must be taken to combat the diseases. In Canada, Statistic Canada found that almost a third of Canadians aged 5 to 17 is overweight or obese. According to the World Health Organization standards of measurement, 31.5% of 5 to 17 year old Canadians are classified as overweight or obese from 2009 to 2011. With the high rates of obesity in Canadian children, which many affect their quality of life in the future as many diseases will develop as an adult. Canadian doctors attribute to the fact that the food industry has made it easy for Canadians to gain calories. The Canadian government must impose a junk food tax to make sure that accessing junk food and gaining calories will be more difficult. With the junk food tax, the Canadian government will increase tax revenues, Canadians will be able to change their lifestyles and the risk of Canadians having diseases such as obesity and diabetes will be dramatically decreased.

One of the most common medical illnesses of school-age children is obesity. Childhood obesity can be attributed to sugary snacks and beverages provided at schools and homes. In this composition, I will discuss my policy priority issues as it

“If and when the public chooses to use government power to offset the factors that promote obesity, we can do so. A day may come when we decide to limit advertising of unhealthy food, strengthen lifestyle teaching in schools, and create stronger financial incentives to adhere to lifestyle recommendations. The more eager we the people are to fight the obesogenic environment, the more responsive and effective our governments will become” (Medscape General Medicine, vol. 9, no. 4, 2007).

With a growing epidemic of obesity in America, some states and lawmakers have resorted to taking unconventional measures in order to counter the growing issue. Many legislators are debating the effectiveness of a “fat tax” would be on limiting the consumption of soda, high fat foods, and high sugar foods, and ultimately reducing the rate of morbidity and mortality due to obesity. The idea is that long term consumption of high fat, high sugar foods and drinks lead to many health problems, so making them more expensive and less accessible should decrease the health issues related to their consumption.

A fat tax would plague producers and outlets. Such was the case with the world’s first fat tax introduced in Denmark. This tax on foods high in saturated fat was dismissed after less than a year and left many consequences in its wake. It has been guilty of “increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies' administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk," as stated by the Danish tax ministry. As a result, the planned sugar tax has also been abandoned. As well, the tax was a costly procedure and failed to change the eating habits of people in general. A fat tax on fast food would have the same limitations and ultimately lead to failure.

The fat tax in America, an attempt to improve the obesity epidemic using the legislature. The fat tax will not cure obesity in America. One idea is it will be used as an incentive to help improve the eating habits of Americans. The revenue collected can be used to enhance education as well as implement programs to teach healthy life style tips such as exersice and even implamenting gyms in placeces like community centers, another suggestion is to reduce cost of healthy foods using some of the tax money. As a result of the healthier habits of the population Medicare and Medicade may be less stressed resulting in less expenses, this could lead to less government debt as well as a healthier population. The percentage of obece adultes dobled in the last therthy years and obisty in children tripeled the cost of obesty anuly is 100 bilion dolers According to Hellen Evans the author of Healthier food in shopping centers could change bad habits; when asked if the government should impose a fat tax she said yes, but she also stated “that the a fat tax on its own is too simplistic and we should focus on understanding and chancing people’s behavior.” (Evans, 2012). Meaning you can not just put a tax on food and expect people not to eat it the poulatoin has to want to be helthy but giving them a insentive to do so by making the helthy option more acsesable will help form helthy habits.

Is it possible for consumers not to notice the federal government adding tax to their junk food? Currently there is a federal tax on gas, cigarettes, spirits, and wine, but not many Americans know exactly how much of the price of the product is due to taxes. It is common knowledge that the federal government adds a tax to these products, but Americans are still willing to purchase these products. This paper is about adding a tax to junk food in order to improve health and assist in reducing the amount of junk food intake.

Economic costs of obesity are increasing and will continue to do so if nothing is done. Healthy Communities for A Healthy Future state that the estimated annual health care costs related to obesity are 190 billion dollars. This is 21% of total health care costs. This includes direct costs, such as preventive and treatment services, while indirect costs include income lost to days debilitated or future income lost to death. On an individual level, an obese person will cost 42% more in health care than a person of healthy weight. A tax directly related to products known to cause obesity would offset the cost of health care, and hopefully result in less obesity in the Nation.

Raising food taxes is the topic of the editorial article “Slapping a tax on junk food is still a bad idea” by the Globe and Mail. The writer states that raising taxes is not the answer to decrease high obesity rates and instead suggests that moderation and lifestyle are key to enjoying food. The editorial also acknowledges the increasing amount of attention we give to this problem now that it has grown larger and more complex. Also, an increase of taxes ultimately allow the consumers to have the last say in what they consume. The writer argues that an increase of taxes on junk foods is not necessary for society; my research will focus on whether this is true or not.