Should Junk Food Be Taxes

Should Unhealthy Food Be Taxed?
There is an epidemic seizing its grip on America. One in three Americans are currently dealing with the effects from this outbreak that has grown in numbers three-fold in the last 50 years. This is not your traditional disease that that may be in the air or water, rather primarily caused by something consumed. That epidemic is junk food. The Center of Disease Control predicts that nearly half of Americans will be obese by the year 2030. With obesity expected to keep growing, the most logical first step would be to address what people are consuming. Some argue that adding taxes onto common junk foods will not only shrink this growing problem, but encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle. There are skeptics
Thomas article, he emphasized that lower-income Americans, the ones who this tax would be aimed to assist, would only have their quality of lives decrease as a result of this tax. This tax is not something hypothetical and we can actually look at the current effects of such a tax. . In 2011 the country of Denmark became the first country in the world to impose a junk food tax. If the composition of a food product contained for than 2.3% saturated fats, there would be a scale of increasing tax on that item. By 2050, some estimate Denmark citizens could have been paying nearly 50 billion dollars per year in medical expenses. With this new tax in place, Denmark plans on extending some of the savings (as well as the income generated from this tax) back to the lower tax bracket of their society through tax breaks and projects that otherwise may not have been as widespread without these savings (Clark, Ross). This is still a new program and research is underway in studying the program’s effectiveness, its worth is definitively proving itself in the early
Thomas wrote an opinion article addressing this issue, he did not address the group that he differs in this thinking with. Branching from that view, he does not address why people would be for such an action, and continuing from there, what benefits could be gained from exploring this option. Junk foods impact extends well beyond tax payers and income divisions. No system is perfect, and will a tax with as limited of a track record is no excuse. While many will argue different solutions to problems related to junk food, if people reduce their consumption of the products in this category, plus people of all socioeconomic conditions potentially saving on long-term cost attributed to the consumption of junk foods, what really is there to