The Introduction of Fat Tax to Combat Obesity in Australia

This essay examines the potential implementation of fat taxes in Australia to combat the growing obesity epidemic. It draws parallels with Denmark's initiative and explores the economic and health implications of taxing high-saturated fat foods and sugary drinks. The essay highlights the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australia, emphasizing the role of inexpensive, readily available, and unhealthy foods. It discusses the potential impact of fat taxes on consumer behavior, citing research on the effectiveness of such taxes in reducing consumption of unhealthy items. The essay addresses the arguments for and against fat taxes, including concerns about regressivity and the allocation of tax revenue. It references various studies and surveys to support the claims, including the potential for significant reductions in the consumption of sugary beverages and improvements in public health outcomes. The essay concludes by advocating for the implementation of fat taxes in Australia as a means of improving public health and reducing healthcare costs, while also considering the need for complementary policies such as healthy diet subsidies.

Fat Tax

Contents
Fat taxes should be introduced to combat Australia’s obesity epidemic.........................................3

Fat taxes should be introduced to combat Australia’s obesity epidemic
Australia should pursue Denmark's initiative and look at taxing high-saturated foodstuffs
at mitigate the country 's rising obesity epidemic, Greens-leader Bob Brown stated on fiscal
forum. Denmark has added extra foodstuff levy, which involves butter, beef, milk, cheese,
oils and refined food, that contains upwards of 2.3 percent saturated fats. In country Australia,
obesity is growing concern, with overweighed or unhealthy in 2 out of 3 adults. It raises the
likelihood of chronic diseases like asthma, cardiovascular disorders and asthma. The Australian
Medical Association commissioned an online survey asking, after Denmark launched world's 1st
"fat tax" recently: could Australia lift tax on fatty foods? around 70% of 1032 voters replied
"yes" as well as around 30% "no", which suggests a significant increase in price of junk foods.
Despite Australian citizens being among fattest people on earth – and fat tax not on table, with a
quarter of children now overweight. Obesity is mainly driven by food supply, especially the
growing supply of inexpensive, delicious and high-quality foods. According to Alemanno &
Carreño (2013), Obesity requires to be tackled immediately – and growing price of unhealthy
items is a means of dissuading customers from preferring bad dietary choices. As overweight as
well as obesity rise in more nations, fat taxes have been imposed on unhealthful foods as well as
sweetened drinks to try to decrease the increasing impact of obesity issues on health. Take into
account the possible impact of food junk levy. Researchers assert that a 20 percent tax on soft
drinks can is sufficient to prevent it from being bought. It is simple to analyze: in convenience
shop someone visits refrigerator to purchase drink and prepared to take taste and cost choice. It
becomes less alluring if soft drink is more costly than lower-fat milk or water-bottle, and we may
witness a transformation in purchasing behavior as well as decrease in obesity-promoting items.
As per the views of Boncinelli, Gerini, Pagnotta & Alfnes, (2017), Fat tax relates
to specific tax levied on food-items with elevated saturated fat or sugar drinks, which
contributors towards obesity issues. The primary goal is to reduce the use of unhealthful foods
attributed to obesity issues and certain health risks. a Obesity is the major risks to international
reported deaths by the World Health Organization during 2015. A further WHO survey has
shown that globally rates of overweight as well as obesity affected approximately 1,9 million.
Investigators have demonstrated that people are at rising risk of overweight due to unhealthy
food choices. Obesity issues and overweigh are not just a result of poor food choices, but has led

many nations to investigate how to reduce the threat of fatty foods by developing a model
replicating the effects of fat taxation on high fat, flavorsome salts, sugars and SSB. The concept
reported that overall consumption of unhealthy/junk food items as well as SSB had a correlation
with the rise in obesity crisis. As customers prefer to turn to healthy and reduced calorie options,
the implementation of fat taxation has been shown to minimize obesity and the
overweigh population by 60 percent. Provided savings towards obese-related health problems
and the consequent transition to healthier eating preferences, Australia must implement fat
taxation to tackle obesity. The emergence of fat taxation contributes to health quality
improvement and costs savings in the diagnosis of health problems linked to obesity-issue. It was
noticed that in country, a 10 percent percent tax for unhealthy food-items, a 20 percent tax for
SSB are possible cost savings and a major increase in population wellbeing and savings in the
cost of disease care. In addition, the Fat tax would raise the individual consumption of nutritious
foods if healthy diet rebate is similarly levied. the implementation of system of fat tax would
boost and lower health care costs medical costs because of reduced consumption of fatty food,
because of health hazards, higher costs of healthcare, pressures on schooling and jobs caused by
obesity.
Fat tax may be divisive since poor spend a larger percentage of their earnings on foods. This
issue is minimised by taxing foods which predominantly include calories with no other
nutritional value, as calories are easily accessible from many dietary sources in developed
countries. proponents suggest allocating earnings to subsidise healthy foods as well as nutrition
services education in order to create fat tax less onerous for poor. In addition, advocates have
stated that fat taxes are less regressive to degree that it decreases medical expenses among poor
on targeted foods. Even so, among poor, there are indeed a greater prevalence of diet-related
diseases than in general population. Fat taxes on unhealthy foodstuff has been requested for by
public health professionals and researchers in a number of different nations (Doucett, 2015). The
rationale underlying the introduction of fat tax is belief that unhealthy eating habits will be
reduced by people, enhancing health results in community. Research shows that current obesity
problem is growing as a consequence of the growth of the food service industry. Unhealthy food
stores are shifting society's eating habits, trying to push out conventional establishments and
resulting to obesity issues, diabetes as well as heart disease having negative health impacts.
Tobacco taxes already lowered smoking rates which, as a consequence, demands have been

made towards fat taxes be introduced in more nations in an effort to minimise the intake of fatty
foods. A Jan 2010 CBS News survey found that around 60 percent to 38 percent are objected
to tax on products like soft beverages and snacks regarded to be a junk food. The issue as to over
whether or not such tax rate affects diets, conversely, is empirical question but not merely matter
of public viewpoint. The researchers propose that tax of $1.37 for each 100 grammes of saturated
fat imposed on foods containing more than 2.3% of saturated fat, with exception of milk; salt
tax 30 cents per gramme of sodium above the Australian highest suggested stage; sugar-
sweetened beverage levy of 47 cents for each litre; fruit and vegetable subsidisation of 14 cents
for each 100 grammes; and a sugar tax 47 cents for each litre. A study published in November
by Grattan Institute found that the introduction of excise tax of around 40 cents for every 100
grammes of sugar level in drinks as portion of fight toward obesity would cause a 15
percent reduction in the usage of sweetened beverages (Jensen & Smed, 2018). Each year,
Australians as well as New Zealanders intake an avg of around 76 liters of sugary beverages per
individual. As the chairman of Australian Medical Association, Steve Hambleton said, people
are complaining that we have turned into a kid's state; however, the AMA surveys provide quite
good evidence that most people prefer unhealthy food tariff. The health effects of items such as
smoking, drinking including junk food don't really cover levy on such things currently levied.
But it ought to be. Many people in australia would like weight loss, better eating, more shifting
and they would like to make kids healthy adults. However, they need policies to encourage
people to resources to maintain behaviour changes (Miao, Beghin & Jensen, 2013). Throughout
recent years Australians are becoming more responsible when it comes to smoking habits,
drinking, driving, sexual health and sunlight exposure because they have altered their structure to
allow these healthier choices smoother. Australia cares about making people take personal action
and we should do this with the greatest current health issue-poor diets. We need strategies to
cope with the climate that drives the epidemic of obesity. The Australian Medical universities
have challenged the state to ban or stop obesity and also have considered for six-point action
plan – such as tax on sucrose beverages.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Alemanno, A., & Carreño I. (2013). 'Fat taxes' in Europe - A legal and Policy Analysis under EU
and WTO Law. European Food and Feed Law Review: EFFL, 8(2), 97–112.
Boncinelli, F., Gerini, F., Pagnotta, G., & Alfnes, F. (2017). Warning labels on junk food:
experimental evidence. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 41(1), 46–53.
Doucett, S. (2015). Fat taxing our way to a healthier world. Suffolk Transnational Law
Review,38(2), 387.
Jensen, J. D., & Smed, S. (2018). State-of-the-art for food taxes to promote public health. The
Miao, Z., Beghin, J. C., & Jensen, H. H. (2013). Accounting for product substitution in the
analysis of food taxes targeting obesity. Health Economics,22(11), 1318–1318.