Governments should tax junk food?

[grammafreddy]

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Governments should tax junk food, scientists urge


A new report suggests that governments around the world should intruduce taxes on unhealthy food.(CP)

By: CTV News.ca Staff

Date: Thursday Aug. 25, 2011 6:01 PM PT

Governments around the world should introduce new taxes on unhealthy food, and limit food and beverage advertising to children, in order to slow and eventually reverse the obesity epidemic, according to a series of papers published by the British medical journal The Lancet.

The four studies -- an exhaustive effort by an international team of researchers revealed Thursday in London -- look at obesity trends around the world, their underlying causes and misconceptions, and make recommendations about how countries like the U.S. and U.K. might slim down.

Better government policies are at the top of the list.

"Action by governments and other relevant institutions is needed to halt the obesity epidemic," the authors write, noting that taxes and limitations on advertising were previously effective in curbing tobacco use.

The researchers also say international agencies, self-regulation by the private sector, health professionals and the public at large must also contribute.

The studies found that obesity -- defined as a body-mass index greater than 30kg/m2 -- is increasing worldwide, though the stats vary greatly from country to country. Only one in 10 adult women in the Netherlands is obese, compared to one in three in the U.S. and seven out of 10 in Tonga.

Worldwide, around 2 billion adults are overweight or obese, as are 170 million children.

Obesity takes up between two per cent and six per cent of health-care costs in many countries, and in some regions including the U.S. has overtaken tobacco as the largest preventable cause of disease.

The U.S. and the U.K. have the highest obesity rates among the 34 mostly western, developed member states of the Organization for Co-operation and Development. Researchers predict that those countries will be home to 65 million and 11 million more obese adults, respectively, by 2030 if rates remain unchanged.

The studies blame the epidemic, which got going in the 1970s and 80s, on factors including sedentary lifestyles and greater consumption of cheap, high-energy food.

The researchers say rising global obesity rates pose "the toughest challenge" faced by the UN member states that are due to meet for their first high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases in September.

"The UN meeting provides a key opportunity to... seriously address the continuing global epidemic of obesity. Beyond that meeting, the test will be how well member states match their declarations with supportive funding and policies to support global actions," they wrote.

Over my dead body. Governments need to quit with this nannyism and get back to governing.

PEOPLE need to start being more responsible for their actions - and what they eat. There's gazillions of information out there to help them make wiser choices. PARENTS need to wise up and put their families' health at the top of their priority list - not their me-me attitudes and their "I'm too busy to cook" "I can't afford to eat healthy" mentality.

Yesterday at WalMart in the checkout line, there was a woman with a full buggy and two young girls about 10-12 years old. Nice looking lady - nicely dressed but slightly overweight. Her buggy was loaded over the top with TV dinners (Michelinas must have been on sale - she had about 20 of them), potato chips, cookies, sweet cereals, canned spaghetti, candy and other poor choices. There was not one piece of fresh fruit, not one fresh veggie, no fresh meat in her shopping. She did have milk - about 3 jugs.

For what she spent on that buggy of non-healthy food, she could have fed her family for a month if she had made healthier, wiser choices. What she was subjecting those two girls to was a new generation of unhealthy people and a lifetime of fighting their weight and poor health issues.

[JLives]

It's about time, now to make it cheaper to eat healthy and teach them to produce their own. Junk eating is causing tons of problems and putting stress on the health care system. The parents of the kids have been raised brainwashed themselves to eat the junk food as kids and are continuing the cycle. I am an advocate for limiting marketing of pretty much everything to kids. My kids have had limited exposure and I do see a huge difference in their attitudes compared to their peers.

Government is the things we decide to do together and allowing our kids to break out of the cycle of addiction to junk food is a good thing for our society.

[DerKaiser]

^^^^AGREED^^^^

...but then, isn't this what government likes to do? Allow people, by their own stupidity, to get addicted to something, and then tax them to death on that thing. Oh well, I don't like fast food anyway.

[Corneliousrooster]

Governments need to quit with this nannyism and get back to governing.

I don't see this instance as "nannyism" though - more cause and effect. to me it is a fiscally responsible decision to help offset the medical costs associated with the lifestyle. One way or the other we will be taxed to pay for the services provided, might as well target the ones that need (or will need)the services most.

[UnknownResident]

Sure, our food system is skewed right now so that the bad calories are cheaper. That's messed up.

[DerKaiser]

Health Canada is whining about obesity, child obesity and health risks that come with unhealthy eating...so do something to regulate the prices on organic and healthy foods. If people can only afford to eat crap, they will probably end up eating crap.

[grammafreddy]

Sure, our food system is skewed right now so that the bad calories are cheaper. That's messed up.

That's not true. That thought is used as an excuse but it is not true at all.

If you think the food system is screwed, then unscrew it by making healthier choices. The bad guys will go away on their own - or make their products healthier.

Shop the outside perimeter of the store for your food items - that's where the good stuff is - the fresh fruit and veggies, the dairy, the meat and fish. Inside aisles contain all the sugars, sodiums, and crap in boxes, bags and packages.

Plan your meals and your shopping trips in advance - a week ahead. Go once to the store, not everyday because you forgot something - you end up there hungry and spending more on junk and unhealthy food.

It's very do-able - but lazy folks or folks who are too "busy" will make all kinds of excuses and expect government to babysit them.

Gawd, I should teach a bleedin' course on nutrition, cooking and shopping smarter.

[grammafreddy]

Governments need to quit with this nannyism and get back to governing.

I don't see this instance as "nannyism" though - more cause and effect. to me it is a fiscally responsible decision to help offset the medical costs associated with the lifestyle. One way or the other we will be taxed to pay for the services provided, might as well target the ones that need (or will need)the services most.

It would be more fiscally responsible to teach people how to cook and shop smarter. Taxing them for their sins isn't the answer - educating them is. Prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[UnknownResident]

Sure, our food system is skewed right now so that the bad calories are cheaper. That's messed up.

That's not true. That thought is used as an excuse but it is not true at all.

If you think the food system is screwed, then unscrew it by making healthier choices. The bad guys will go away on their own - or make their products healthier.

Shop the outside perimeter of the store for your food items - that's where the good stuff is - the fresh fruit and veggies, the dairy, the meat and fish. Inside aisles contain all the sugars, sodiums, and crap in boxes, bags and packages.

Plan your meals and your shopping trips in advance - a week ahead. Go once to the store, not everyday because you forgot something - you end up there hungry and spending more on junk and unhealthy food.

It's very do-able - but lazy folks or folks who are too "busy" will make all kinds of excuses and expect government to babysit them.

Gawd, I should teach a bleedin' course on nutrition, cooking and shopping smarter.

The last thing I need is another nutrition course.

But our food system is skewed in favour of the bad calories. In terms of dollars per calorie it's pretty obvious you get more calories with less money from the bad calories. It's not even debatable.

[grammafreddy]

It's about time, now to make it cheaper to eat healthy and teach them to produce their own. Junk eating is causing tons of problems and putting stress on the health care system. The parents of the kids have been raised brainwashed themselves to eat the junk food as kids and are continuing the cycle. I am an advocate for limiting marketing of pretty much everything to kids. My kids have had limited exposure and I do see a huge difference in their attitudes compared to their peers.

Government is the things we decide to do together and allowing our kids to break out of the cycle of addiction to junk food is a good thing for our society.

So you made a choice to feed a healthy diet to your kids and to teach them about making decisions that are healthier.

Would you rather the government decided what you should eat? Would you be happier if they just got your entire paycheque and then you got your food and other goods from a central warehouse with what you can have dictated by the government? How much personal choice do you want to have taken away from people?

While I know you support total communism of goods and services, government control of people's lives is NOT the answer. Talk about slavery ... the more we expect government to do, the more we become slaves and lose our right to choose for ourselves.

What do you expect them to do? Ban cooking oil and potatoes so nobody can have french fries? We did that with drugs and created an underground criminal economy which costs us a fortune and considerable loss of life.

People who advocate for greater government control and higher taxation, seriously need to rethink things. In the long run, you will lose more than your money.

[grammafreddy]

The last thing I need is another nutrition course.

But our food system is skewed in favour of the bad calories. In terms of dollars per calorie it's pretty obvious you get more calories with less money from the bad calories. It's not even debatable.

No, our food system is skewed by people who do not make good choices. The suppliers of food provide them because people buy them. Do you think they would spend the bucks to produce something that does not sell?

In terms of balanced nutrition, you get more for your dollar by buying fresh and cooking from scratch instead of buying manufactured food. That's not debatable, either.

[JLives]

So you made a choice to feed a healthy diet to your kids and to teach them about making decisions that are healthier.

Would you rather the government decided what you should eat? Would you be happier if they just got your entire paycheque and then you got your food and other goods from a central warehouse with what you can have dictated by the government? How much personal choice do you want to have taken away from people?

While I know you support total communism of goods and services, government control of people's lives is NOT the answer. Talk about slavery ... the more we expect government to do, the more we become slaves and lose our right to choose for ourselves.

What do you expect them to do? Ban cooking oil and potatoes so nobody can have french fries? We did that with drugs and created an underground criminal economy which costs us a fortune and considerable loss of life.

People who advocate for greater government control and higher taxation, seriously need to rethink things. In the long run, you will lose more than your money.

The government is not above us, the government IS us, they are not the enemy. I see feeding a poor diet as really close to abuse. You are knowingly giving them substances that can kill them over time. That is the point where we should intervene and do what we can to minimize harm.

What this tax does is not limiting choices in any form, nothing is being banned so that is a red herring. It is a user fee to those who choose to pay it. If you don't want to buy expensive junk food you have that option. It is an excellent tool to coerce better choices out of people. I just hope the funds would be used to educate and teach people healthy cooking so we can reduce the impact of this problem in the future.

[WeatherWoman]

I am all for taxing junk food and would love to see a "fast food" tax too! And the money should fund our medical system!

[UnknownResident]

The last thing I need is another nutrition course.

But our food system is skewed in favour of the bad calories. In terms of dollars per calorie it's pretty obvious you get more calories with less money from the bad calories. It's not even debatable.

No, our food system is skewed by people who do not make good choices. The suppliers of food provide them because people buy them. Do you think they would spend the bucks to produce something that does not sell?

In terms of balanced nutrition, you get more for your dollar by buying fresh and cooking from scratch instead of buying manufactured food. That's not debatable, either.

Sure, obviously for nutritional bang for your buck buying veggies and meat is the best choice. But in terms of making somebody feel full, it's a different story. I think we're straying a bit off the topic now though. I'm in favour of the new tax, and I'm also in favour of not taxing fruits, veggies, meats, poultry, and fish.

[Imagination]

I'd love to see what qualifies as 'junk'. For me, I could name a lot of things others consider 'healthy' that to me are pure and absolute junk. There are also some things that aren't junk at all but merely convenient so some folks class them as junk. Essentially for instance there is nothing wrong with a hamburger but start adding preservatives, fillers and starches and you now have something quite different, but hamburgers themselves are not something I'd agree to have classed as junk food. Same goes for fries when the only problem there is the type of oil some are made with, yet no one starts making the same faces over other forms of potatoes which can be equally as bad or worse just because they aren't considered 'fast'.

In my book you can't class foods as junk using the type of terms that seem to be coming up. It's some of the ingredients in the processed/junk foods that need to be outed. It's the corn syrup and corn starches that are subsidized and in nearly all processed foods (pure sugar/fructose that is deadly to us) that is often the culprit vs the food itself. Start un-subsidizing and start taxing that corn crap and maybe we eliminate it from some of the foods on the shelves. Right now it's in nearly everything be it traditional junk food or what passes as healthy processed foods. Same goes for over processed flours and other junk additives they put in foods to keep people addicted to them. I am subject to completely scratching my head at what passes as 'health bars' for instance when all it takes is comparing their labels to chocolate bars to see what's what. Tax the chocolate bars because they are junk and not the 'health bar'? No way, they are often full of the very same ingredients so it has to be by ingredient.

I also think the gov'ts on this continent can simply shut up about what they think is healthy as long as they are also supporting their food guides (often developed to keep their political supporters writing cheques), the associations pushing unhealthy foods like the heart and stroke, and diabetic associations, and not preventing fluoridation of the water supply in many places for starters. They can also shut up as long as they support big pharma and the reactive way traditional medicine is running things. Until it all swings to prevention rather than treatment and health over profits in some meaningful way, this would just be yet another veiled attempt at looking like they are actually concerned. Sorry, but not at my expense they don't.