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Should junk food be taxed?
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I would personally love to see parents and parents-alone held responsible for what their kids eat. Taxing people to affect their behaviour is bullcrap. It's the kind of thing that lead to the first revolution and it's sad our country is so full of mental and moral weaklings we allow that stuff to continue.
Dangerous liberty trumps safe slavery...every single time. Food, cars, travel, speed limits, whatever.4 -
all of you complaining that the government takes too much of your money already (I.E. high taxes) you should try living and working in a scandinavian country.
you guys have it easy when it comes to taxes.
BUT we get free medical, free school etc.
Junk food/fast food should most defenitly be taxed, the higher taxes has worked on cigarettes (teen smoking dropping), so if people can't afford junk food, there'll be less health problems and in return, less patients at hospitals.
Makes perfect sense to me1 -
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MishaWest79 wrote: »I would personally love to see a shift in the way foods are marketed at Children, the brainwashing psychology that sees many kids pleading with parents to purchase foods loaded with salt, sugar and saturated fats just because they have seen a well loved character selling the product manipulatively.
Adults can make informed decisions, sure some of us emotionally eat because our parents pacified us with foods and yes it could be argued that parents could simply say no, but even the most healthiest looking treat can be loaded with hidden nastiness and some guardians lacking nutritional insight or willpower purchase the foodstuffs anyway as it is convenient for them. Children like my nephew will binge on foods outlawed at home whenever out of the care of parents, friends are always willing enablers and don’t get me started about some Grandparents. (MUM!!!)
If food labeling was more transparent and advertising less aggressive I feel that future generations might be spared some serious ills. In Australia few schools implement a traffic light systemthat helps parents understand nutrition by encouraging a healthy variety of food groups to be consumed: heas.health.vic.gov.au/healthy-choices/guidelines/traffic-light-system
IMO Governments would do best overhauling allowable levels of "junk" ingredients which includes food additives, they in my opinion are the evilest form of non-nutritive junk! Food additives, some known carcinogens are surely worse than natural ingredients consumed in excess?
Taxes are not always the solution, here we pay goods and services tax and if the "junk" were to be taxed further the consumer would pay. So I pose if there was a tax that the manufacturer bears the brunt from profits of foods containing said ingredients.
As others have said before me, the cash would have to be in trust and only spent to promote healthful living however that is defined as it is a matter of perspectives. Covering the cost of the medical needs of those impacted would be difficult to measure and I am left wondering...Would it be exploited?
In virtually all cases taxes on a business are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.5 -
Ok. Serious response here.
Food isn't like cigarettes and booze and other drugs that most people cannot make for themselves if they so wanted to. Pop would really be the only "junk" food most couldn't make for themselves and now, with SodaStream, that's not an issue for many Americans either (though keeping them up is expensive).
The list of junk food is a list of things you can make at home:
- Candy. Just go into any craft store and you'll find all the tools you need for making candy. Heck, you can even make your own candy bars!
- Potato chips
- French fries
- Cheese straws (the pre-cheeto generation)
- Buttered popcorn
- Burgers
- Fried Chicken
- Fried cheese
- Milk Shakes
- Pizza..the greasy stuff you get from dominoes
- Nachos and Tacos
- Hot dogs
And yes, if you're at all kitchen creative you can make your own in all of these AND more. The odd thing is, it's the convenience of getting them made FOR you that makes them unhealthy. Take nachos for example.
If you buy reduced fat cheese, uncooked corn tortillas, lean beef, seasoning, an onion and bell pepper (not included in Taco Hell's nachos) You can actually make a dern good nacho without the frying, the grease and the higher fat.
BUT the food industry, in its infinite wisdom, has opted to charge you MORE for giving you LESS bad stuff. For example, you pay more for "less salt" or "lower sodium" in some products when all they're doing is not adding in as much salt for preservative! Instead they're amping up some other preservative in the product. Probably something you can't pronounce that Iran isn't even allowed to have!
Long and short is: people can and will make things at home so you can't stop them from eating the fattening foods. And you cannot close down all the fast food places, either. And, as they found out in NYC, when they taxed super-sized sodas higher than other sizes- people just took their own containers of drink to wherever. They really didn't mind a little inconvenience for their favorite drink.
Personally I think there should be a regulation on how much you can charge for healthier foods. Organic is sky high and all it means is the food is grown with natural substances (like cow poop) as opposed to chemical treatment.
I also discovered that "locally sourced" foods are defined by what the retailer means by the term "local". That could, because there's no legal definition, mean its local to some part of your state or even your country, sourced initially by the local picker (in my state that means an illegal is making .40 a head to pick the cauliflower I would pay $2.89 a head for, go figure!)
Long and short? Its a system thing. Once we the people decide that our health is more important than the convenience, we are so much ahead of the game.
And, someday, I'll figure out how to do that.
Cheeseburger, anyone?
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Taxing "junk" foods would only affect poor people. That's certainly not something I would condone. They're taxed enough and left screwed over by governments enough as it is. Richer people can afford better quality foods, better equipment to cook with, and have access to a better education where they learn about the health benefits of eating well and also, how simple it can be to cook healthy and nutritious meals.
What we need instead of taxing, is to educate kids from a very early age about what they're eating. And governments need to start working on ways to get healthy food into people's diets at a reasonable price. School meals need to be healthy. Kids need to learn to cook.
Basically, forget the taxes. Knowledge is power.1 -
Most who I have had this discussion with have the thought of taxing junk food not to stop everyday cash paying shoppers from purchasing it, it is to prevent or make it more difficult, for those on EBT/Food Assistance pay for it. If "junk food" was taxable, then it would not be paid for under these government programs and if wanted would have to be paid with actual cash. It is to help, or it is said it, supposed to help the obesity problem in children and the lower income folks. It's really what the introduction of the 'taxing junkfood' thing is all about.1
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txfyreflye wrote: »
I am not pro or against taxing junk food (I think various state and local gov'ts should try it if the residents of those places are in favor and then we can compare how it works with other approaches). However, taxing it presumably wouldn't have this kind of effect, because currently junk food is subsidized* and it's still going to be cheap if taxed more. Also, we tax booze heavily (although the specifics vary by state) and don't have much of a black market. (I think there used to be more of one in cigarettes when state laws differed more, and under my approach you'd certainly have people going elsewhere to buy non-taxed Oreos or the like, as they probably will in Philly to get non-taxed soda.)
*As mentioned upthread, I think getting rid of the subsidies is a better approach than taxing, but it would have an effect on the cost of other foods not normally considered "junk."0 -
No. Such taxes are an abuse of taxation. Taxes are properly levied in as simple and uniform manner as is practicable, for the sole intent of defraying the legitimate expenses of government. Period. It is just not right to use taxation as a means of punishing someone from engaging in a legal behavior someone else disagrees with. If cigarettes are such a horrible evil, then government should ban them; certainly, government should not collect more money from their consumption than anyone else. Such tax policies are about money, and nothing else. But since that expresses a level of greed that's crass even for political bureaucrats, they tell us it's actually for our own good. Every time we accept another so-called "sin" tax, we confirm to those bureaucrats that we are indeed dull-witted fools....................5
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all of you complaining that the government takes too much of your money already (I.E. high taxes) you should try living and working in a scandinavian country.
you guys have it easy when it comes to taxes.
BUT we get free medical, free school etc.
Junk food/fast food should most defenitly be taxed, the higher taxes has worked on cigarettes (teen smoking dropping), so if people can't afford junk food, there'll be less health problems and in return, less patients at hospitals.
Makes perfect sense to me
If I wanted to live there I would move there. We don't all have to live under the same system, and these kinds of comments always remind me how limited most people's views are outside of their own countries.
I have lived in a country with fullly socialized medicine and the care those docs provided was awful. Your country may do a better job but not according to what I've read. I was fortunate enough to use a private pay doctor, and when we faced serious medical issues we went back to the US. We need to change the availability of basic and preventative care in the US, but our system is tops for critical care and serious medical issues.
As for junk food specifically, I eat it, and I'm healthier than the vast majority of men my age. It's called moderation, and government taxes isn't the answer to that. Education is.7 -
txfyreflye wrote: »Long and short is: people can and will make things at home so you can't stop them from eating the fattening foods.
Agree with this, and it's one reason why focusing on packaged foods as the reason for obesity is so annoying. I happen to prefer homemade, but I don't delude myself that my homemade pies or cookies are "healthier" or "less fattening" than something I'd buy, because "fewer chemicals" (not really).
That said, people CAN make stuff at home, but it takes more work and time and forethought, so I suspect that a lot more calories are consumed because adequate substitutes* are available without any time, effort, or thought involved. I'm much more likely to overeat if I allow myself to freely eat from snacks available at my office in a mindless way or if I think having a few snacks like that over the course of the day is normal (which I think we do in part because of the prevalence of snack foods) than if I have to eat only foods I cook.
However, the availability of these things is NOT therefore a bad thing -- IMO, choice and food availability is good -- and it's also not changing, tax or no, so I think the solution is something other than a tax, something that has to come from the individual in large part, and ideally culture also.
*The idea that people overeat these because so tasty that they can't stop, unlike food that existed previously, is bizarre to me. It's not tastier than homemade, at all. But it's gotten to the point where for many it's close enough that it will be an adequate substitute, and yet is cheap and super available.0 -
I think rather than taxing junk food healthy snacks should be subsidized. I live in a fairly poor neighborhood and lots of my neighbors are on SNAP/food stamps. Parents desparate to feed their kids something and super poor think that cheetos and fruit snacks are the way to go. The fact that I can buy a pack of cheetos for 50c and an apple at the same store is damn near three dollars is absurd and sets poor life skills for the children.
I used to work for a dude who swore that they couldn't be poor because they were fat. I use fatness as a fair indicator that they may, in fact, be poor.1 -
70% of the US population is overweight or obese, taxing the heathcare system (especially the 30% that are obese). I'm all for personal responsibility, but how's the take responsibility for your own actions thing working out for us?1 -
Only if we get to tax yachts more. See how these stupid politicians like it when something they like gets taxed unfairly.2
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Packerjohn wrote: »
70% of the US population is overweight or obese, taxing the heathcare system (especially the 30% that are obese). I'm all for personal responsibility, but how's the take responsibility for your own actions thing working out for us?
The games nanny staters play. "Free healthcare! Oh, we can't afford that? Fat people? But they're beautiful and we can't tell them to lose weight, and we need more money for our spending. Okay, then just tax everyone's food. Then we can provide additional handouts to the poor to make them eat healthy food."1 -
LilyBentley2013 wrote: »I think rather than taxing junk food healthy snacks should be subsidized. I live in a fairly poor neighborhood and lots of my neighbors are on SNAP/food stamps. Parents desparate to feed their kids something and super poor think that cheetos and fruit snacks are the way to go. The fact that I can buy a pack of cheetos for 50c and an apple at the same store is kitten near three dollars is absurd and sets poor life skills for the children.
I used to work for a dude who swore that they couldn't be poor because they were fat. I use fatness as a fair indicator that they may, in fact, be poor.
Where are you buying your apples?? The Marathon station?
Standard Golden Delicious apples are rarely more than $2 per pound which is an average of about 3 apples. So that's 67 cents per apple if you're paying top dollar (this excludes expensive varieties like honey crisp).
ETA: And since when do Cheetos only cost 50 cents???2 -
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Packerjohn wrote: »
70% of the US population is overweight or obese, taxing the heathcare system (especially the 30% that are obese). I'm all for personal responsibility, but how's the take responsibility for your own actions thing working out for us?
Hard to know how something's working when it's not being used.0
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