Fat Tax

A fat tax is a tax or surcharge that is placed upon fattening foods, beverages or individuals. As an example of Pigovian taxation, a fat tax aims to discourage unhealthy diets and offset the economic costs of obesity.

A fat tax aims to decrease the consumption of foods that are linked to obesity. A related idea is to tax foods that are linked to increased risk of coronary heart disease. Numerous studies suggest that as the price of a food decreases, individuals get fatter. In fact, eating behavior may be more responsive to price increases than to nutritional education. Estimates suggest that a 1 cent per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages may reduce the consumption of those beverages by 25%. However, there is also evidence that obese individuals are less responsive to changes in the price of food than normal-weight individuals.

To implement a fat tax, it is necessary to specify which food and beverage products will be targeted. This must be done with care, because a carelessly chosen food tax can have surprising and perverse effects. For instance, consumption patterns suggest that taxing saturated fat would induce consumers to increase their salt intake, thereby putting themselves at greater risk for cardiovascular death. Taxation of sodium has been proposed as a way of reducing salt intake and resulting health problems. Current proposals frequently single out sugar-sweetened drinks as a target for taxation. Cross-sectional, prospective, and experimental studies have found an association between obesity and the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks. However, experimental studies have not always found an association, and the size of the effect can be very modest.

Since the poor spend a greater proportion of their income on food, a fat tax might be regressive. Taxing foods that provide primarily calories, with little other nutritional value reduces this problem, since calories are readily available from many sources in diet of industrialized nations. To make a fat tax less burdensome for the poor, proponents recommend earmarking the revenues to subsidize healthy foods and health education. Additionally, proponents have argued that the fat tax is less regressive to the extent that it lowers medical expenditures and expenditures on the targeted foods among the poor. Indeed, there is a higher incidence of diet-related illnesses among the poor than in the general population.

Unlike placing restrictions on foods or ingredients, a fat tax would not limit consumer choice, only change relative prices.