Fat Tax

The other day, I purchased a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I was surprised to find a warning label which read something to the effect of “Candy is a special treat and should be enjoyed in moderation.” Even though I hardly ever eat candy, I felt guilty consuming it. Still, I wondered if the reason that such a warning existed had more to do with feared legal liability than a genuine concern Hershey’s had for the general health and well being of its customers. Is this the lasting effect of the McDonalds law suit, books like Fast Food Nation, and movies like Supersize Me?

I was glad to hear that my fair New York City has initiated legislative measures that would ban the use of trans fat in any of her nearly 25,000 eateries. This is the same forward-thinking city that banned smoking in restaurants three years ago. Kudos to Gotham City on both accounts!

Taking it a step further, I recently learned of a proposal to tax all foods rich in saturated fats, or, in a word, a fat-tax. Basically, it would extend the “sin” tax that presently applies to cigarettes and alcohol to include junk food. It’s the governments way of saying, “Yeah, you can kill yourself, but not without paying us first!”

The pro’s and con’s of taxation is an economic matter, something that I’m not particularly well versed in. Luckily, I stumbled upon the story on Judge Posner’s blog. (Yes, Judge Posner keeps a blog!) For those of you who are not familiar with his body of work, Posner is a judge and professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a giant, no, the giant, in the field of economics and the law. You can read his thoughts, along with the thoughts of another economist, Gary Becker, here.

Posner suggests that increasing the price of junk food might result, contrary to the laws of demand, in an increase in junk food consumption. He cites the “Giffen Effect” which suggests that higher prices might cause poor people to be even poorer, forcing them to consume only junk food, which though more expensive than before, is still less expensive than healthy food, which they can no longer afford. Got that? Basically, the income effect dominates the substitution effect. (If that makes it any clearer.)

Becker takes a different approach, suggesting that pharmaceuticals will advance to the point where heart disease, blood pressure, and high-cholesterol are no longer problems. Basically, he’s arguing that we don’t have to worry about this now, because in a few years our life expectancy will reach new highs, even if we’re all rolling around in our giant, gas guzzling fat-mobiles, because we’ll all be drugged out of our greasy, partially hydrogenated minds.

I’m not particularly moved by either line of reasoning. Then again, I don’t care much for the economic perspective. Economics presupposes that regular people have a capacity for a very particular form of higher level reasoning – complex, high-order cost-benefit analysis. It’s been my experience that most people would rather just be told what to do, especially in matters where mathematics is concerned.

To that end, people should be forced to exercise.

Simply telling people that fat is bad for them is merely stating the obvious. Heck, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup episode makes me wonder if we’re headed towards a world in which everything carries a warning label. I half-expect to see a warning label for warning labels themselves: “WARNING: READING FINE PRINT HAS BEEN CLINICALLY PROVEN TO HAVE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE VISION OF LAB RATS! ONLY BE WARNED IN MODERATION.” If everything carries a warning label, no one will pay attention to any of them. Plus, as noted before, people are bad at decision making, even when they are given lots of good information.

Instead of simply providing more information, our schools should have gym offered twice a day for 45 minutes each session. (When I was in high school, we had it once every 8 school days, or less than once every week and a half!) I imagine this would cut down on the prescriptions doled out for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the like. It would also be a nice break for teachers. If kids do not participate in an after school sport, they should be “fined” with having to do laborious community service. Similar rules would apply to adults in the workplace. In addition, we should have a group of people, dressed like American Gladiators, with giant foam bats that will randomly chase people around town if they are found to be too sedentary. If paying the government didn’t stop you from eating that second bag of Doritos, maybe a whoopin’ from Nitro will do the trick.

Oh yeah, and if we catch you smoking, we’re locking you in a window-less room with Weird Al Yankovik, Pauly Shore, and Carrot Top. Withdrawal symptoms will be the least of your worries.