Fat Tax
2003-06-11 | 8:34 a.m.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Hamburgers, soft drinks and cakes could be hit with a "fat-tax" in a bid to combat Britain's growing levels of obesity, doctors said Monday.

The British Medical Association is proposing a 17.5 percent VAT (value added tax) on high-fat foods like cookies and processed meats to solve obesity-related problems, which cost the health care system roughly $825 million a year.

"There is an epidemic of obesity in the UK," said BMA spokesman Dr. Martin Breach. "You are what you eat and if that is the case the British public have a huge problem."

"Charging VAT on saturated foods found in processed meat products like sausages, pies and pastries, butter and cream, may help save some lives."

According to government statistics, one in five men and one in four women is obese. Obesity is a serious risk factor for heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, muscle and respiratory problems and certain types of cancer.

A levy on fatty foods would be widely perceived as a regressive tax because people on lower incomes tend to eat proportionally larger quantities of cheap, high-fat food.

"We need to educate people about the benefits of eating healthy foods and make them more responsible for their health," said Belinda Linden, Head of Medical Information at the British Heart Foundation.

"We also have to be sure that a fat tax does not just end up penalizing the poor without actually changing eating habits."

But Breach said the tax would hit food manufacturers hard and have little effect on the poor.

"A fat-tax will remove food manufacturers' incentive to pump food full of fat. Instead they will fill processed foods with healthier ingredients and better selections of meat," he said.

"Fat is a cheap by-product of the meat processing industry -- they have mountains of the stuff and are desperate to use it, so they use it as cheap padding in foodstuffs," he added.

In Australia, officials are considering similar measures. Australian Medical Association vice-president Mukesh Haikerwal said Monday the fat tax would be one of several fat-fighting ideas put to health ministers next month.

A recent national survey of over 11,000 people by the AMA showed almost 60 percent of Australians were overweight or obese, more than double the rate 20 years ago.

More than a billion people worldwide are overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization. Roughly 17.6 million are overweight children under five.

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