Should your government place a tax on the junk food and fatty snacks?

It is no denying the fact that the rate of lifestyle associated diseases has increased compare to the past few decades. If we take a look to people’s lifestyle, we will realize that one of the major things that has been changed is the food that they eat. Nowadays, the majority of people eat fatty and junk foods almost everyday. This unhealthy diet increased the prevalence of some acute diseases like heart attack, stroke and coronary heart disease. Therefore, finding a way to prevent people from eating those unhealthy foods is a hot topic a debate, which is much talked by nutritionists. Some nutritionists believe that one of the most effective ways of decreasing consumption of junk and fatty foods is placing tax on them. Although it is a highly controversial topic, but I agree with them. I tend to believe that placing tax will increase their price and could be a way to encourage people to not use them.

The foremost reason why I am supporting this idea lies in the fact that junk foods are mostly buy by low-salary people. The reason behind this is their low price, which makes them affordable for them. For example, the price of a meal containing a cup of soda, a big burger, and fry potato at McDonald is less than 7 Dollars. This meal can be categorized as a junk and fatty food, but since it is inexpensive people with low salary have a tendency to buy it frequently. Therefore, by placing tax on it, the price of a McDonald’s meal will increase and low-income people will not consider that food as an affordable food to eat everyday. This example shows that applying this policy could be effective to encourage people to not buy junk food, at least it could decrease the frequency of buying them.

Another subtle point that we should deem is the fact that those fatty and junk foods contain chemical preservative, oxidant and toxic compounds and they are poor in vitamins and other essential nutrition. As a result, there are a treat for human’s health. I read a report in the newspaper which claims that every year the USA government spend more than one billion dollars one treatment of diet associated disease. This is a huge financial burden for the government, which is payed by citizen’s tax. If Those diseases are caused because of eating unhealthy foods, therefore I do not think that it would be fair if we the government spend everyone’s tax to cover that cost. Instead, the government should place tax on junk and fatty foods. If some people are not interested in having a healthy lifestyle, why all citizens should pay for her/his health cost?

Overall, due to the aforementioned arguments explored in the previous statements, I believe that placing tax on junk and fatty foods could be an effective policy for reducing their consumption by people.