Strategy to Fight Obesity Explosion
Combating obesity is not simply an aesthetic issue, but concerns long-term health. No wonder a number of countries began to implement a number of strategies to prevent people from eating “junk food” in excess levels.
There are many claims of powerful drugs to fight obesity, but the problem is the intention of people to fight obesity and live a healthy lifestyle. One thing that could be done, is by forcing them to avoid high calorie food by applying various strategies.
Dr Mike Rayner, from the Department of Public Health University of Oxford, UK, agrees with the strategy of increasing taxes on unhealthy foods high in calories such as soft drinks, chocolate and bad fatty foods.
He sees the obesity epidemic is looming in the country. Seen from the increasing cases of obesity-related health. “We are in the grip of an obesity epidemic. Our nation is eating too many calories,” he told the BBC.
Rayner said, a significant tax increase would make people reduce the intake of unhealthy foods. And in the long run, this policy is very effective in reducing premature mortality in a country.
The British government slowly began to implement this strategy. While Denmark began to impose a tax for the purchase of additional foods containing high saturated fat: butter, chips, and chopped meat.
Similar policies are Nappie in Hungary. Local governments impose additional taxes for all types of packaged foods that contain unhealthy high levels of sugar, salt, carbohydrates, and caffeine.
While in Germany, there is a discourse to burden greater tax to citizens who have a fat body than people who have an ideal body weight. The policy was adopted in order to close the budget deficit due to increased number of medical diseases caused by obesity.
Juergen Wasem, an economist, agrees with the increased taxes to reduce the explosion of obesity in citizens of a country. “The tax is then used to post the health budget,” he said.
Obesity is a hot issue in some countries, particularly developed countries, because it triggers a number of chronic diseases that lead to premature death. Therefor people are advised to live a healthy living, and consume healthy foods, like a grape for example, it is known that grapes help fight obesity.
Tagged with: fight obesity, Obesity, Obesity Epidemic, obesity explosion, tax to fight obesity,
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