Alternative Fat Taxes to Control Obesity

Abstract

Fat tax, Obesity, Nutrient index, Nutrition, Health, H2, I1,

Food prices, taxes, and obesity in Canada and its implications for food taxation

“…Therefore, they do not necessarily target the nutrients responsible for causing obesity in Canada. Clark and Dittrich (2010) argue that nutrient taxes (e.g., taxes on the fat content of food) better target the problem than do food group taxes (i.e., taxes on food composites) and therefore nutrient taxes are more effective as a means to promote less obesity. All of the taxes in Canada, with the exception of the allocation of milk quotas by fat content, are food group taxes.…”

“…This approach allows for acrossgroup substitutions of obesogenic nutrients but does not allow for within-group substitutions of nutrients. Clark and Dittrich (2010) observe that food groups have a large number of elementary goods and that with changes in price substitutions of nutrients within groups commonly take place.…”

“…Chen et al (2002) demonstrate that the use of food group prices results in estimation of the reduced form model and nutrient prices estimate the structural model. Which prices best capture nutrients in diets as they relate to obesity is discussed in Clark and Dittrich (2010) who argue that nutrient prices better capture the effects of taxes to control obesity than food group prices. Beatty (2007) implies that the appropriate price is a nutrient price in his study to develop shadow values of nutrients.…”

Tax incentives applied against externalities: International examples of fat tax and carbon tax

“…On the other hand, Clark and Dittrich (2010) indicate the problem arising from the complexity of foodstuffs, who argue that it would be wrong to treat NETA in the same way as, for example, the excise duty levied on tobacco. The main difference is that in the case of the tobacco tax only those consumers pay the tax who smoke, on the number of cigarettes smoked.…”

Empirical Evidence of the Efficiency and Efficacy of Fat Taxes and Thin Subsidies

“…With variable proportions, nutrient price and income elasticity are estimated directly and not tied to the overall food group elasticity, and the negative relationship between own price of the composite and the nutrient is no longer required to hold (3). In this case, FGT would be counterproductive.…”