When will there be a tax on junk food?

By Sarah Best.

Have you read the story about the 30-stone Mum of triplets who's been feeding them fish and chips and McDonald's meals since they were six months old? It's been causing outrage and rightly so. Read the story here. These infants are eight months old now and according to the recommendations of all credible health authorities, including the World Health Organization, should still be getting most of their nutrition from breast milk, nature's perfect food for babies. But sadly breast milk doesn't figure anywhere in the diets of these babies, and it's doubtful it ever did.

I have to get up on my soap box about this story, because it points to so much that is wrong in our society. The mother, Leanne Salt, was the fattest woman ever to bear triplets, weighing in at 40 stone at the time of the birth (which necessitated a medical team of 68 and a custom-built operating table, and cost the NHS a mega £200,000). But these days barely a week passes without the popular media parading some grotesquely oversized couch potato whose lifestyle of idleness and junk food is financed by the taxpayer, along with anything needed to take care of the consequences of it.

Few of us would suggest leaving such people to fend for themselves with no state safety net, especially if they have children to support and care for. And few of us would want to do away with our free health service and adopt a system like the US one where people who can't afford essential treatment can be cast out of hospital to die.

The government hands out money but can't control what people spend it on, including what foods they buy...or can it? In fact, it could be doing a great deal to stop all but the wealthiest in society from making junk foods the staple of their diet. How? Through taxation.

The UK government heavily taxes cigarettes and alcohol. For example, around 80% of the price of a pack of cigarettes is tax, and tobacco sales generate around £10 billion a year in taxation revenue. Why does it not also heavily tax junk foods? What, exactly, is the perceived difference? A McDonald's double cheeseburger will set you back just £1.29. What if it cost £2.50 instead, or better still £5? The answer is obvious - fewer double cheeseburgers would be consumed.

Why is our system of taxation and subsidies not designed to make healthy foods more affordable and unhealthy ones more expensive? What is the point of the UK government spending £75 million on its "Change 4 Life" campaign, designed to encourage people to make healthier choices, when it's cheaper to buy a takeaway, a ready meal, a monstrous meat pie or any number of other abominations than it is to put together a dish of fresh organic vegetables, or an organic salad?

Of course, the definition of junk food would have to be relatively narrow, and confined only to those foods that most doctors and dieticians consider junk food. Why not go by the Food Standards Agency definitions, which are that food or drink that contains more than:

• 10 grams of sugar
• 5 grams of saturated fat
• 0.5 grams of sodium

per 100g is detimental to health? And why not tax such foods to discourage consumption, and all foods and drinks containing trans fats, or sporting ingredients lists like this...

"Carbonated Water, Colour (E150d Caramel), Sweeteners (E951 Aspartame*, E954 Sodium Saccharin), E338 Phosphoric Acid, Flavourings, E330 Citric Acid, Preservative (E211 Sodium Benzoate), Acidity Regulator (E331 Sodium Citrate), Caffeine, Anti-foaming Agent (E900 Dimethylpolysiloxane)"

...regardless of fat, sugar or salt content. In case you're wondering, it's a diet cola.

And while we're at it let's stop subsidizing the production of meat, eggs and milk and use that money to subsidize foods that (1) are truly healthy and (2) the average person doesn't eat enough of, i.e. fruit and vegetables.

A junk food tax would have a massive positive impact on the nation's health, our budget deficit, and the environment. (Click on the link to read about recently publicized research quantifying the supersized carbon footprint of the obese.)

Such a tax has been proposed before, including by researchers at the Department of Public Health at Oxford University. But predictably, it's unlikely to happen until things are so bad there is no other option. No government will want to bring in a tax that would be so unpopular with a large portion of the electorate and, more to the point, the food and drinks industry. But last summer it almost happened in France, when scientists urged ministers to introduce a "fat tax" which would more than treble the VAT on junk food. They also suggested cigarette-style health warnings on packaging for fattening foods, and a ban on junk food advertising during children's television programmes.

Now to put this in context, France is Europe's second slimmest nation after Italy. That's not to say the situation there isn't dire. More than one in three people are now overweight or obese and there has been a concurrent increase in heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Britain, meanwhile, has Europe's second highest proportion of obese women at 25 per cent (in first place is Greece), and its men are the fifth fattest.

The scientists' recommendations were set to go before the French parliament last summer, and could have become law by this year. But shortly after France's proposed fat tax made front page headlines, its Budget Minister Eric Woerth declared it was "out of the question" due to the economic climate. The experts behind the recommendations acknowledged that "the least privileged sections of the population, who eat least well, could be most heavily penalised" by the tax increase.

But hold on. If the taxes were so high they priced junk food out of the budget of these people, or forced them to eat it as an occasional "treat" rather than the basis of their diet, would that really be "penalizing" those people? The foods in question are terrible for them and their families, and the money raised through taxes could be used to make healthy foods more affordable for them. 

Junk food consumption also costs the health service untold millions every year, and sports a massive great carbon footprint. So why not insist that those who want to eat such foods must pay duties on them which reflect their true cost to society? It's not as if those who can't afford to would be missing anything that's necessary or good for them. Let's be clear: the only people who really benefit from junk food's true cost being externalized to society as a whole are the companies and investors who get rich off others getting sick.

Of course the stock objection to suggestions that the government should introduce fiscal measures that encourage people to adopt better diets is that it is a "nanny state" measure. Well clearly much of our adult population needs that nannying! That said, if they want to live on junk it is indeed their business. All a tax would do is ensure that those who made that choice paid a price for junk food that reflects its true cost.

The duty on cigarettes goes a long way towards paying for the indirect costs of smoking. A junk food tax that reflects the true cost to society of these "foods" would be the surest way to improve the nation's health, the nation's finances and our collective carbon footprint to boot.

Comments

[Elena]

Amazing article... So true here in the States too. I live in a country where 70-80% of the population are overweight or obese... yet people look at me like the crazy person. I wish whole foods vegans ruled on such laws--we could whip everyone in shape pretty quickly :)

[Cressy]

"What is the point of the UK government spending £75 million on its "Change 4 Life" campaign, designed to encourage people to make healthier choices, when it's cheaper to buy a takeaway, a ready meal, a monstrous meat pie or any number of other abominations than it is to put together a dish of fresh organic vegetables, or an organic salad?"

That is a really, really good question. This is an excellent article, you ask some very important questions. Sadly, I don't think anything will change until our society is being completely devastated by the consequences of our current actions. But articles like this are really important and hopefully help to keep these issues on the political agenda.

[Carolyn]

agree with evry word of this. thought provoking stuff. This is my favorite blog. Thank you!!!!