Nanny state propaganda: Changing minds about junk food

Surrey Leader
Jan. 27, 2007

It may be radical for government to tax chips, loaded with salt and fat, and sugar-laden soft drinks and candy like it does cigarettes but that may be what it will take to make the point these products can impair health.

Kids especially are vulnerable to marketing and their parents are vulnerable to whining. Making these products less appealing by slapping some taxes on them might be one way to keep them out of the hands of children at risk of developing poor eating habits.

Members of B.C.’s standing committee on health were surprised to find that these items are exempt from the Social Services Tax. But given concerns about obesity and marketing towards young people, putting taxes on these food products should be the least onerous and easiest to implement among the recommendations from the committee’s Strategy for Combating Childhood Obesity and Physical Inactivity in B.C. (www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/health).

Indeed, the government might go further than simply removing the exemption for candies, confections and soft drinks under the Social Services Tax Act and ramp up the taxes on these products and other unhealthy foods, as has been done on cigarettes.

It seems bizarre to to lump food products with cancer-causing cigarettes but more research is showing a link between the food we eat and health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And youngsters are increasingly at risk as their caloric intake easily outstrips their activity rates.

The report estimates the direct and indirect cost of obesity and inactivity in B.C. at about $1 billion annually and predicts serious health consequences in the future if the trend continues.

It wasn’t that long ago that smoking was considered glamourous; in the earliest days, it was even promoted as healthful.

For the sake of today’s children, perhaps it won’t be long before sharing and eating junk food will, like smoking, be considered a socially unacceptable activity.