Society & Culture - Posted by Patric Lane-UNC on Monday, March 8, 2010 17:47 - 9 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5) Loading ...Fast foodies cut back when prices go up
“This study gives us strong scientific evidence that price policies, including taxes, could actually be effective at helping control obesity and the resulting chronic diseases, like diabetes,” Barry Popkin says. “Our results provide robust evidence to support the potential health benefits of taxing selected foods and beverages as a way of improving public health.”
UNC CHAPEL HILL (US)—A new study that followed participants for 20 years shows both weight and risk for diabetes decreased for people in communities where fast food prices increased.
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The study also showed when prices fell, consumption, weight, and diabetes risks rose.
“These results indicate that increasing the price of fast foods and sodas can affect adult behavior, and steer them toward healthier diets, lower weight and less risk of diabetes,” says senior author Barry Popkin, the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Findings are reported in today’s issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Popkin says taxes have been proposed on fast foods and soft drinks in some states, such as New York. In a number of countries, including Denmark and others in Europe, they are used to discourage consumption and encourage healthy diets.
“This study gives us strong scientific evidence that price policies, including taxes, could actually be effective at helping control obesity and the resulting chronic diseases, like diabetes,” Popkin says. “Our results provide robust evidence to support the potential health benefits of taxing selected foods and beverages as a way of improving public health.”
Popkin and his colleagues used data from more than 5,000 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. When it started in 1985, CARDIA participants lived in four U.S. cities. In the intervening years, participants have moved to 48 states.
Researchers collected information on the average prices of products, including restaurant pizza, burgers, soft drinks and whole milk in the counties in which each participant lived. Prices were adjusted to 2006 levels.
When researchers analyzed the diet, weight, and insulin levels of study participants, they found that when prices of fast foods and sodas went up just 10 percent, participants consumed on average 7.1 percent fewer calories from soda and 11.5 percent fewer calories from pizza. That translates to about 56 calories a day less, which corresponds to a reduction of about 3 to 4 pounds a year per person, Popkin notes.
The participants who found their fast food prices rose also gained less weight and had a lower risk for diabetes based on a test for fasting insulin.
Taxation, particularly in the form of an excise tax, could be helpful as such measures were successful in the case of smoking cessation efforts, Popkin says.
“For these fast foods, taxes would represent the most effective way to reduce adult obesity that we have today, based on this research,” Popkin adds.
He also notes that cigarette taxes have been found to have a much larger effect on teenage versus adult smoking and he would expect that fast food taxes on children and teens would similarly have a larger effect than on adults.
Researchers from UNC, the University of Alabama at Birmingham; and University of Minnesota contributed to the study.
UNC news: http://uncnews.unc.edu/
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9 Comments
Alex Heyden
It can’t be reduced from zero. Where I come from, and where the most of researchers come from, produce (along with most unprepared food) is not taxed at the consumer level. Alabama is the only exception in that list.
Marco
Alternatively, in the U.S. at least, we could subsidize healthy foods instead of corn so that products like high-fructose corn syrup don’t end up in every food product we eat.
Just a thought.
Rich
Instead of subsidizing healthy foods, we could let people pay more of their healthcare costs directly, so that those who choose to eat poorly and suffer the resulting bad health, have to pay for the bad consequence of their decisions. That is, in effect a “subsidy” for healthier habits.
Personal responsibility, without government intervention. We should try it.
Marco
@Rich: You do realize that healthy foods cost much more than eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds every day, most poor people cannot afford prices for food that won’t kill them. This may not apply to people on food stamps though, not sure how that works, i.e. if there is a low limit to their food budget.
GAPeach
@Alex–groceries, includiing produce, are subject to county sales taxes in GA but not the state sales tax. I assume then that GA was not included in the study.
Laura J.
This is exactly why we don’t need universal health care- the government will be trying to control every movement that affects health care dollars. This seems less about helping people make the right choices and more about funneling them like cattle through a controlled maze. Surely it can be justified as “what’s best for them”…let them choose what is best for them! Yes, we want people to make good choices and be healthy- but that is their call, not ours. Ditto Rich on personal responsibility.
Elisabeth
Rich, I wonder how all those people with cancer would feel about having to pay directly for their own healthcare. Are you suggesting that a four-year-old with leukemia was not exercising enough personal responsibility and her family should therefore have to pay the full cost of her treatment? I don’t imagine you really do think this. But in order to make the personal responsibility a component of healthcare costs you’d have to have a system of penalizing “bad” behaviors. Can you imagine the outcry from the “Don’t tread on Me” crowd?
VMR
You can tax my tortilla when you pry it from chile covered fingers
I notice the emphesis is on rasing taxes on fast foods. Lowering taxes on healthy foods would be a better system since more pepole would be able to afford healthy food.