Could targeted food taxes improve health?

Purpose: To study the impact of expansion of value added tax (VAT) in the UK on expenditure on nutrition, health and broader food. METHODS: We built a model based on consumption data and elasticity values ​​to predict the impact of VAT on food in specific categories. We estimate changes in demand, expenditure, nutrition, health condition. Three different taxation schemes were studied: (1) taxation of main sources of dietary saturated fat; (2) taxation of food

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Improving health is the main objective of public health agencies and supporters, but there are some legitimate opposition to be achieved through the targeted food tax. The main concern is that food tax, which is large enough to improve health outcomes, will further lower the consumer budget, especially for low-income households. The worst scenario is that these taxes increase food insecurity. It is therefore necessary to associate a broad taxing strategy with the corresponding large subsidies to ensure that access to consumers' low-priced food products is not compromised.

It is widely believed that eating more will improve health, lower medical costs, and improve quality of life. The problem is that the relevance between taxation on unhealthy foods and consumption of such foods is weak.

WHO identified the food tax as a tool to improve population meals. Taxing unhealthy foods and drinks for public health reasons to reduce consumption is an example of government fiscal measures and is effective as price is an important factor in deciding food choices. Sugar sweet drinks are a common target of food taxes as they give little or no energy to related nutrients. Australian researchers estimate that the average SSB consumption of men will be 141 g / day at 124 g / day and that for women will decrease by 12.6% from an average of 76 g to 67 g / day when the price of soft drink and flavored mineral water increases by 20% doing. Average energy intake decreases by 16 kJ / day (male) and 9 kJ / day (female). When these modest declines are inferred over more than 25 years (assuming no other dietary changes), the authors found that a slight decrease in the prevalence of obesity was about 0.7% in men, 0.3% in women, I predict.