Fat Chance of Fat Tax
Apparently there is a war on obesity. Trouble is, there does not seemed to be a well-defined enemy in this war. Is it the fast food industry? Perhaps it is the actual fat in foods? Maybe it is the obese person themselves? Or their wicked, neglectful parents? Or perhaps it is carbohydrates, not fats, that make you fat?
No government is going to make any inroads on tackling the problem, regardless of how much of our money they want to throw at it
”All this uncertainty make one thing completely certain. No government in the world is going to make any inroads on tackling the problem, regardless of how much of our money they want to throw at it. Politicians are a simple breed and need a simple target and plan. Unfortunately, the temptation to give politicians a simplistic answer is simply too great for some weight zealots.
Doctors in the UK are demanding action from their government. It seems as though they have settled on the enemy – junk food – and the method – tax. It also seems that their agenda involves the eventual banning of junk food (despite prohibition being a consistent failure). Sadly, I can predict that there will be little agreement amongst them as to what constitutes junk food. Remember, doctors are the people who told you that eggs (probably the most nutritious cheap food on the planet) were an evil collection of cholesterol that would kill you faster than Jack the Ripper. Expect only confusion and knee-jerk politics from this lobby-group.
Presumably this excitement from the UK has sparked a reciprocal shrill cry from anti-obesity groups in this country. Evidently there are a number of “experts” (in what?) who believe that the government is not doing enough.
Amazing. It seems that my weight problem is all Tony Ryall’s fault. And I thought it was something to do with the fact that pizza and beer is my favorite meal and that I get as much exercise as an arthritic sloth…
“A health committee inquiry into obesity and type-2 diabetes in 2007 said the obesity epidemic threatened to overwhelm the health system without a concerted government-led response.
“Recommendations included restrictions on advertising, improving health promotion and changing food labelling.
“The National Government has ruled out a tax on fatty foods, or regulating food advertising.”
So, if I understand the above correctly, changing food labeling and taxing fatty foods will make me thinner? Suddenly it is all clear to me now. My obesity has been caused by bad food labeling, not by “death by chocolate” desserts! With another government pamphlet in my hands, I could lose 10 kilos overnight! As long as I never see another KFC advert, I will morph into a svelte waif and live forever!
There has got to be a Tui advert in there somewhere.
Absurdly, all of these things have been tried by other governments, without a lot of success. There is absolutely zero evidence that any of them will work, with the exception of a tax on food. The problem here will be to decide which food to tax. Will you tax KFC (fried chicken) but not Nandos (grilled chicken)? Is the fat in a bag of potato chips any worse than the sugar in tomato sauce? Which is the worst part of my staple diet, pizza or beer? Are you going to tax things made with butter but not things made with olive oil?
How will you handle the deleterious effect of such a tax on the poor? Obesity is especially prevalent in poorer households for multiple reasons, not the least being that more expensive, healthier food tend to be markedly less satisfying. Poorer families fill up on bread and fatty cuts of meat. A tax on these staples will see such families simply eat less of these – not more of expensive, healthier foods – often to the detriment of their overall nutrition. Attempting to mitigate this through subsidies will, of course, be entirely self-defeating, unless those subsidies are directed at the healthier foods. Unfortunately, this is a recipe for complex, ineffective government intervention (politicians like simple, remember) and unintended, but entirely predictable, consequences.
The central problem behind this conundrum of obesity is that neither fat nor carbohydrates are by any means bad for you. It is overconsumption of fat and carbohydrates that make you fat, not the food itself. As this is an entirely volitional problem, it is not something that a government can solve, even if it wanted to. Only a society as a whole, mainly by peer pressure, makes a difference to a person’s free choice.
While the banning of advertising, control of labeling and restriction of use have all had some part to play in the reduction of smoking, none of this would have been achieved without a real change in the attitude of the general public towards smoking. However, there is no way that we can produce the same sort of result for obesity. While a smoker can quickly put his cigarettes aside and become “normal” again, there is no way an obese person can temporarily dump 20 kg of fat. We simply cannot produce the level of disapproval required to make inroads on obesity without cruelly discriminatory behaviour. This is clearly not an acceptable proposition.
This is one area that any government would be well advised to step away from. This kind of intrusive social engineering is not well tolerated in New Zealand society. I suspect Tony Ryall understands this. Which is why a Fat Tax is a non-starter.
Besides, the so-called obesity epidemic is not an epidemic at all. Estimates of the cost of obesity to the health system almost entirely fail to account for the fact that the vast majority of obese people have mild to moderate obesity, which has minimal health consequences. It is only when you start to carry more than 50% above your expected weight that you develop serious health consequences. There is not really a lot of evidence that an extra 10 – 15 Kg makes a whole heap of medical difference, particularly if you otherwise exercise and eat well. Thus statements like this…
“Experts believed obesity was the biggest health problem facing the nation, with a cost to the health system estimated at $500 million a year.”
…are wildly exaggerated for effect. It should be obvious to the “expert” quoted above that accidents are the biggest health problem facing the nation – after all ACC spends three billion a year on them. And it is highly unlikely that obesity alone accounts for $500 million in expenditure. This is almost certainly a composite figure that includes estimated contributions of obesity to heart disease and diabetes. The problem here being we have no idea how many people classified as obese are sufficiently overweight to increase their chances of heart disease and diabetes, so this figure is little more than a guess.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time a government has found a non-functional solution to a dubious problem that is constructed almost entirely of conjecture and guesswork, wouldn’t it?
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Jul 13 10 1:51 am
MacD
Can you advise whether any country, anywhere, has rolled out an anti-obesity strategy that has had a measurable impact on their population? Short of mass starvation, preferably.
Obesity is said to be a problem in all developed countries, and a few less-developed ones as well. Presumably, different government have tried different remedial strategies?
All of the wailing from the anti-obesity lobby says ‘the government must DO SOMETHING’. This assumes there is something the government can do that will make a difference. But is there?
Jul 13 10 10:21 pm
I am not aware of any government that has has success with obesity measures at a national level. As I argue above, I don’t actually think it is possible for governments to succeed at this.
Jul 13 10 9:30 am
An easy experiment that wouldn’t cost that much in the overall scheme of things but might settle this would be for a small town to have 100% subsidised fruit and vege for a week. Then all you would have to do would be to ascertain if the amount of beer and mutton flaps sold dropped at the same time to prove healthier living.
I would put money on the outcome.
Jul 13 10 10:21 pm
Me too.
Jul 13 10 9:43 am
If you are serious about stopping obesity through tax then tax fat people. I’m serious here one quarter of population are obese, and if you seriously don’t want that tax em. Sorry buddy you weigh 140kg you lose 10% extra off your take home pay. You don’t have to be harsh about it, hell I had to lose 10% for my student loan and now I’m losing 4% for superannuation. The key thing is make this the incentive 10% sits there until the goal weight is gained. Yeah buddy you now weigh 80kg you can have back $$$$ well done. See they aren’t going to burden the rest of us tax payers – just the same as if I die my student loan was wiped and my superannuation is lumpsumed to my estate.
Jul 13 10 10:24 pm
Indeed, you ARE right of Attila
Jul 13 10 9:46 am
As you say, it’s over-consumption that does it. Thus the high taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Flushed with the success in this area of curbing excessive drink and smoking, they are obviously ready to move into the fast food area.
ZenTiger´s last blog ..Looking beyond the grime
Jul 13 10 11:07 am
Did you see that 60 Min programme on Taine Randell, Flaxmere, and the advantages of a boilup?
http://www.mediapeople.co.nz/releases/article.php?id=32271
Far be it from me to recommend boil ups and the like, but I think there’s pretty useful evidence from the US that the obesity epidemic started when the Americans bought into the carbohydrate diets and lifestyle changes of the 1980s.. suddenly a meat portion had to fit the palm of your hand and it was good to fill up on the carbs.
I must admit that then the meat portion 3 inches wide and 4 inches tall that you get with flash steaks at the better restaurants looked pretty good to me.. so perhaps I wasn’t quite with the spirit of the thing. I also converted to those tiny venison medallions to cut out fat.. pity there were about 6 to a plate.
JC
Jul 13 10 9:18 pm
F. T. Marinetti and Fillìa, La cucina futurista (1932)
Nothing new! The enemy then was the Italian passion for pasta.
Jul 14 10 12:17 am
“While a smoker can quickly put his cigarettes aside and become “normal” again, ”
Oh I see – you view your patients that smoke as “abnormal” and a quick dose of cold turkey and hey presto the physician has healed you back to “normal”.
Hey Doc you should take out a patent on this cure, all the world’s Mental Institutions have been waiting for this ingenious method of returning patients back to normalcy.
Jul 15 10 1:46 pm
A fat tax could quite easily be imposed by imposing excise duties similar to the already existing ones on alcohol and tobacco on saturated fat, sugar etc for all food (no need to define junk food) and use the money to reduce personal income tax.
It is unjust how tobacco taxes keep increasing constantly, but they never impose taxes on fattening food. If the taxes on tobacco are truly imposed due to genuine concern about smokers health (instead of revenue) then one can say their concern only extends to smokers and not the obese
Jul 15 10 9:57 pm
So instead of defining “junk food” you now want to extend this tax to all fatty foods and sugar. This makes little logical sense. Which fats are you going to tax? Not all saturated fat is bad. Which sugars will you tax? And will you tax white bread and potatoes both of which have glycaemic indices close to that of raw sugar?
You compare tobacco tax with a fat tax, but there really is no comparison. A tax on fats and sugars would be several orders of magnitude more complex than a tobacco tax and almost certainly doomed to failure.