Group Offers Four Key Ways U.S. Can Fight Obesity
Taxes should be combined with other aggressive policy interventions, as well as community outreach programs, to bring down obesity rates by changing what people eat, according to a new report from the Urban Institute and the University of Virginia. Just as the popularity of smoking declined dramatically over decades, the researchers say, using policy to bring down obesity rates could be effective but would take a generation of work.
Policies suggested in the report "Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies from the Tobacco Wars" include:
-- Imposing excise or sales taxes on fattening food of little nutritional value.
-- Putting graphic, simple labels on the front of packaged foods showing their nutritional value in a form that consumers can easily understand and use
-- Requiring restaurant chains to put simple nutritional information on the menu next to each listed item
-- Banning advertising and limiting the marketing of fattening food
While more than 42 percent of adults in the United States smoked in 1965, that figure fell to less than 20 percent in 2007. Smoking declined, the report's authors say, because of policy interventions like their recommendations, as well as other pro-active steps taken to educate the general population and influence their behavior.
Raising taxes has been a critical tool in reducing tobacco use, Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said today during a discussion of the report.
"It brings about the quickest, most measurable, and most pronounced decline in use," he said.
He suggested, however, that the revenues gained from taxing unhealthy foods or beverages should go back to low-income citizens hit hardest by the taxes, perhaps in the form of subsidies for healthy foods like vegetables.
"An absolute condition ought to be a guarantee money goes back to these communities," he said. "The question is whether [the tax] produces a fair result. A fair result would be better health."
Furthermore, he said, policies like taxes must be supplemented with educational outreach. He said that in the 1960's, well-educated, successful consumers were just as likely if not more likely to smoke. Those smokers quit as more information became available about the dangers of smoking, however, while low-income and less educated smokers were less impacted by anti-tobacco efforts.