One problem with being overweight is that it can be easier for some people to stay overweight. While there may be significant health implications down the track, a healthy lifestyle may not seem like a priority to people who enjoy the taste of junk food, and find exercise uncomfortable. We also live in a world that makes it easy to be overweight, with access to an abundant supply of cheap processed foods, and an ever-growing supply of inactive leisure time pursuits and labour saving devices.
So what can be done about the problem of overweight adults and children? With an election on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what approaches both parties will take. One strategy that has been proposed is a fat tax, potentially increasing the price of junk food relative to healthy food. This strategy has been used successfully with cigarettes, where price increases help to discourage an unhealthy lifestyle behaviour.
Increasing the price of junk food is a small change to the environment that an overweight person lives in, rather than trying to make changes to an individual's behaviour.
But on its own, a fat tax is just one small change. The problem of excess body fat has many causes, and it requires multiple solutions. To have a lasting impact, a fat tax needs to be one of many changes to our fat-conducive world. The revenue raised needs to be spent on strategies that make it easier to live a healthy lifestyle (and not just top up the superannuation schemes of politicians). For example, the revenue could be spent on:
While individual responsibility is important, a fat tax could help to change the world that overweight people live in, making it harder to follow an unhealthy lifestyle. But I feel the use of any revenue raised would ultimately determine its effectiveness.
Do you think a fat tax could help tackle the problem of excess body fat? What foods do you feel could be targeted by such a tax?
We accept
