Bans, Taxes Seen as Effective Against Junk Food

(March 10) -- Decades after public health experts first suggested taxes and all-out bans to limit our consumption of foods like candy and french fries, new research and results from efforts in public schools show that the measures could actually help contend with America's growing gustatory health crisis.

The idea of a "fat tax" has been floating around since the 1940s, when a U.S. physiologist suggested that a fee for extra body mass could help free up food for America's war effort. In the 1980s, the specific idea for a junk food tax was introduced as a means to combat poor nutrition, according to Slate.

In the last decade, the suggestion of a tax that would decrease our consumption of low-quality, high-caloric food has elicited renewed enthusiasm and debate. California and Philadelphia are already moving forward on a soft drink tax, and New Yorkers recently saw the idea suggested, then abandoned, by state legislators.

Polls have showed mixed support, and critics question whether such a policy would even work. A 5.2 percent tax on soft drinks, already levied in several states, reduces consumption only enough to shave three ounces from a 279-pound frame, according to a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine.

And, of course, simply taxing junk foods won't solve the widespread health problems, like diabetes and high blood pressure, that are caused, in part, by poor diet and sedentary lifestyles.

Researchers behind a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine note that shortcoming, but still conclude that a tax on soda and pizza alone could be enough to trim five pounds off the average American body.

The group analyzed the food intake of more than 5,000 adults between 1985 and 2006. They used ongoing inflation of food costs to extrapolate how taxes might alter decisions about consumption.

An 18 percent tax, they determined, would be enough to make a serious dent in our diets.

"Our findings suggest that national, state or local policies to alter the price of less healthful foods and beverages may be one possible mechanism for steering U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet," the study's authors wrote.

Already, a handful of health organizations are behind the idea. The World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Heart Association have expressed support for food taxes as well as increased subsidies for nutritious foods.

Of course, the real-life effect of a tax like the one hypothesized in the study can't be evaluated until implemented. But an initiative already ongoing in American high schools has demonstrated that limited access can have health benefits.

Since 2006, the American Beverage Association has slashed shipments of full-sized soft drinks to high schools by 95 percent, as part of an agreement with the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation.

A progress report on the initiative, released this week, shows that high school students are buying less than eight ounces a week of all bottled drinks. That includes a massive drop in purchases of full-calorie soft drinks: half an ounce a week, compared with 12 ounces in 2004.

The report doesn't include an assessment of caloric intake for students, which would be the best measure of whether the initiative has had success in curbing weight problems caused by poor eating habits.

A 2001 study of middle school students, released by The Lancet, did show a correlation between sugared beverage intake and weight gain. Risk of obesity soared by 60 percent if a student consumed one sugar-sweetened beverage a day.

And maligned eating habits among children might soon be getting yet another nudge in a more nutritious direction. The U.S. Institutes of Medicine wants zoning laws to keep all low-quality foods farther away from school grounds.

If a tax on junk foods does take off in the U.S., it'll likely be a big one. Most studies indicate that nothing less than a 10 percent tax would have any effect. Maine's two-decade, 5.5 percent "snack food" tax occurred in tandem with a doubling of the state's obesity rate.