Obesity is on the rise. A new study shows that around 40% of US adults are obese and this figure is only growing every year. And it is also on the rise in children with the figure of obese youth going up to 18.5% and among children 2–5 years old it rose 10.1% to 13.9% in just 9 years. Between 1980 and 2014, obesity nearly doubled worldwide.
Obesity is also extremely expensive for a country to deal with and hundreds of thousands of people die from obesity related illnesses each year. It costs the United States up to $210 Billion each year in additional healthcare costs for obesity. Heart disease is the number one cause of death and kills almost 598,000 people each year. Heart disease is related to obesity.
The CDC does not consider obesity a cause of death but many related illnesses are associated with the dangers of being obese or overweight. Overweight people are more prone to diabetes, cancer, strokes, and heart attacks.
Obesity is also linked to higher costs on employers due to more sick days and medical claims. This leads to lower work productivity, lower earnings, and higher medical costs. These factors take a toll on GDP growth.
Cigarettes, another major killer, are taxed additionally. Study after study has shown that when Cigarettes are taxed, consumption decreases. This is not just because of the awareness of the negative health effects, this is because it became too expensive of a habit for people. Among children, this especially had an impact.
Some funding was used to invest in anti smoking programs. For example, in Massachusetts those on Medicaid were eligible for a program to get low income residents off of Cigarettes. Between 1998–2006, the amount of smokers who were on Massachusetts Medicaid dropped from just a little above 40% to 36.6%. Then once the program kicked in, the percentage dropped from 36.6% to just 29.6% in just two years, 2006–2008.
Meanwhile, those uninsured and not on the program from 1998–2008 dropped just from 39% to 36%. They continued at the same percentage even after the program was implemented showing how the program was impactful for Massachusetts Medicaid residents.
Health officials said the program helped reduce hospitalized heart attacks by 38%, reduced emergency room asthma visits by 17%, and decreased pregnancy complications. Doctors in Massachusetts agree that it made a difference.
If anything this program has taught us is that additional taxation and programs prevent consumption and is a benefit for us all for harmful items.
Cigarettes kill but so does an excess amount of junk food.
Now it is time to start facing our next public health crisis: obesity. It is time to stop ignoring it and allow for it to spiral out of control. It is time for radical changes and radical proposals. It is time to face it straight into its eyes.
It is time for a Revenue Neutral Junk Food Tax which will decrease junk food consumption and allow for market based solutions to the food industry and the way we eat.
Recent government ‘Let’s Move’ campaigns and all these ‘eat healthy’ commercials have failed over and over again, adding on additional costs while obesity rates are still increasing.
Go to your local grocery store and see how easy it is and cheap it is to pack on the additional calories and sugar. For breakfast, a Chocolate Chip Muffin at a local grocery story can be 630 Calories, and it is not even that big or filling. An 8oz cup of orange juice packs on an additional 100 calories if you don’t get the ‘lite’ container. Depending on how you like your coffee, that can also add a tremendous amount of sugar and calories. It is so easy and cheap to overindulge in America.
Recently, US cities have taken it into their own hands and introduced Soda Taxes. Berkeley, California has saw success with their soda tax with consumption of the sugary, calorie dense beverages down by 20%. But what falls flat on the Soda Tax is that if one city puts one into place, a person can just drive to another city and bulk buy soda. That is why making it national, would work.
In a Revenue Neutral Junk Food Tax, the money collected from purchases on Coca Cola beverages may be used to decrease the price of natural fruit drinks or a natural soda like Zevia that uses the natural zero calorie sugar Stevia. If Coca Cola wanted the revenue back, they would have to come out with their own natural soda. This is how government intervention can help foster in new ideas for the market and allow this to be a market based solution.
But recently, Hungary and Mexico introduced junk food taxes in their own countries. Hungary put a $.04 tax on packaged foods and drinks that include excess sugar and salt while Mexico placed a $.08 tax on all ‘non essential foods’ and foods that that surpassed a threshold of 275 calories per 100 grams.
This decreased consumption of junk food by 7% in Mexico. About 40 percent of junk food manufacturers in Hungary adjusted recipes in ways that make them healthier. By Hungary including nutritional criterias, this allowed for market based solutions. It is too early to see if these taxes decreased obesity rates.
For example, maybe instead of buying a frozen regular cheese pizza at the food store, someone may buy a similar costing healthier pizza like a low carb crust to avoid the tax. Then to avoid losing customers, the pizza company that sells the unhealthy pizza, may come out with a second version of the pizza that is healthier to get back customers. Maybe the revenue from the unhealthy pizza is used to lower the costs of fresh fruits and vegetables so low income families can afford it or to other healthy alternatives of pizza.
Where the funding goes, the effectiveness of the tax, what should be taxed, what the criteria should be, how much the tax should be, or the impact of the tax on the economy are all areas that need more research on. But if this tax is implemented, the revenue must be used for campaigns, education, and lowering healthy food prices, not just back into the government swamp.
Will this tax work? I am not sure, but America needs to have a grown up discussion about this now.
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