Fighting hunger today could help prevent obesity tomorrow.

New study suggests that combating hunger and undernourishment in pregnant
women and children could prevent overweight and obesity, reducing associated
healthcare costs.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/36847/index.html

Also from FAO:

(...) Probably more effective and efficient than a tax on food would be a
direct tax on excess body weight, i.e. a tax on obesity itself. In fact,
many developed countries have already instituted such taxes, mostly in the
form of penalties for extra body weight or incentives (premiums/tax brakes)
to lose excess body weight. The main advantages are (i) no or at least no
negative side-effects on the food markets; (ii) compatibility with other
policy measures; and (iii) no penalty for consumers that need high energy
intake levels because of a higher calorie expenditure. Moreover, the tax
would not only have fewer side-effects but be more effective and efficient
as it allows addressing the excess body weight problem from both sides of
the energy balance, the calorie intake side but also the calorie expenditure
side. The main drawbacks are possible difficulties in the actual
implementation and the fact that a lower body weight in itself is no
guarantor for a healthier diet. (...)

http://www.fao.org/es/ESD/Schmidhuberdiets.pdf


Could anybody, please, cite any lit on penalty taxes on the unhealthy? I'm
also looking for examples of "sin taxes" other than on tobacco and alcohol.
In Finland thare used to be a sin tax on sweets, and the UK considers taxing
greasy food every now and then... The whole concept is very interesting
theoretically, form the "tax science" point of view: if financial capital
gets taxed, then health capital might be taxed as well. Taxing the unhealthy
would be analogous to taxing the indebted to subsidize the creditors :)

Thanx for comments, I'm taking this seriously.

Jaroslaw G. Wechowski, M.D.
Ph.D. cand.
Warsaw School of Economics
Poland

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