First Carbon, Now Fat?

A fat tax on junk food proposed to combat Australia’s burgeoning obesity problem

Obesity used to be just another American export, beamed across the Pacific by movies and reality TV. Those of us who made the trip across the ocean and dared to venture forth into the great American continent may have even seen it in person and watched with gaping awe as an assortment of corpulent guts, rolls of fat, and thick thighs paraded by us in an airport waiting room. But alas! these days we can’t exactly smirk in self-satisfied superiority at American extravagance and immoderation.

Over the last few years Australia has watched its collective waistband steadily expand. A rather large belly now hangs where once a flat stomach stood. The country now snores when it sleeps, wheezes when it walks, and when it steps on the scale, it can barely see its toes.

According to estimates, about 60% of the country’s adults, and 40% of its kids, are overweight or obese, numbers almost unimaginable a few decades ago. We’re rapidly catching up to the Americans, who are hitting the ¾ mark for overweight among their adult population. Worse than the shame is the fact that the heart disease and diabetes that are beginning to plague the American health care system are now an Australian problem.

And of course, as when any problem arises, there are lots of people out there clamoring for the government to come up with a substitute for personal responsibility. One of the ideas being bandied about by health experts is a so-called ‘fat tax’: a tax on foods high in saturated fats. The idea is to model it on a similar tax – the world’s first – in Denmark which increases the price of any food containing more than 2.3% saturated fats. If Danes want to indulge in junk food, they have to pay 16 kroner per kilo.

In addition to the self-evident health justification for such a tax, there is also something of an economic argument to be made, as Access Economics estimates that obesity cost the Australian economy $8.3 billion in 2008. It’s far cheaper for society, the argument goes, to take action now rather than wait until obese people wind of in the hospital with a chronic illness.

But, as with all taxes intended to manipulate personal behavior, the proposed fat tax raises questions of individual liberty. Shouldn’t a person be able to eat whatever food they want?

Health experts claim taxing unhealthy foods is no different from taxing alcohol and tobacco, which the government already does. Says Ken Harvey, Associate Professor at LaTrobe University School of Public Health,

“Such individual decisions [smoking, drinking, gambling] have societal costs – premature death, hospitalisation and the need for remedial services – clearly, the problems of unhealthy consumption and the associated health consequences are societal problems that require a societal approach.”

But there’s a fine line here between the government promoting the public health and the government encroaching on individual rights. Not everyone will see obesity as a societal problem that necessitates government intervention.

Surely Australia needs to slim down a bit, but Aussies are already subject to tight regulation of advertising, tight regulation of alcohol sales, and a ban on smoking in enclosed spaces. And with the recent carbon tax representing a whole new level of taxation as a means of manipulating behavior, how much will Australians tolerate?

For now, government support for the initiative remains low, and it is not included on the agenda of the upcoming tax forum.

Photo via Tony Alter on Flickr.