You may have heard that Denmark recently implemented a new "fat tax" on foods with high levels of saturated fat. According to this New York Times editorial, so has Hungary, and it seems like every country except the one that needs it most, the United States, is considering it. I am completely in favor of such a tax in America, but I realize that the idea is not so simple to implement as that. After all, there are countless families living here that can only afford those high-fat types of foods, since those are invariably the cheapest foods on the market.
In any case, I think that "fat taxes" would help to deter those people who have more of a choice from eating junk foods. This would be tremendously helpful in the long run, as parents might choose healthier options if there were not such a large cost difference between those and the junk food, and then their children would not get so attached to junk foods from an early age. The fact that there is such opposition to the proposal for a "soda tax" speaks to our dependence on sugary goods but, at the same time, our ability to be swayed at the grocery store by a few extra cents.
When I think of Denmark, I think of athletic Viking-esque people, not hordes of overweight McDonald's fans– and I think my stereotyping has some truth to it. So shouldn't we, a country with a terrible reputation in health and eating habits, try everything we can to combat our "fat" image and to make it easier for us to choose the salad over the pizza?
I don't know if they actually passed this, but New York was also considering eliminating soda from the list of items you can buy with food stamps. Somehow I feel better about the soda tax than I do about that, though. What do you think?
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