UGent study supports idea of “fat tax”

A tax on high-fat snacks, sweets and sugary drinks would improve overall health and drastically lower health-care costs, according to the results of a study carried out by two Master’s students at Ghent University.

“Globesitas” is the specialist term for the continuing world-wide obesity epidemic, caused by the increases sales of processed foods containing high quantities of saturated fat and/or sugar. Countries like Denmark and Finland have already experimented with a “fat tax”, a measure that increases the price of unhealthy food products significantly.

However, the impact of the measures differ drastically between the two Nordic countries. In Denmark, the highly unpopular measure was lifted after one year, while in Finland, the tax has indeed decreased the consumption of such highly processed foods.

Liese Albrecht and Tatiana Bracke, specialising in health economy at Ghent University, have examined the feasibility of a fat tax in Belgium by comparing the Danish and Finnish examples. Their research shows that the success of a fat tax is strongly dependant on public opinion. Is it just another measure aimed at filling the state’s coffers – the perception in Denmark – or are the revenues generated used to promote healthy foods – by making them cheaper, for example, as was the case in Finland?

Also in Finland, the government involved the food industry from the beginning and communicated the issue clearly to the public and to industry.

According to Ghent health economist Lieven Annemans, who supervised the study, the time is ripe to introduce a fat tax in Belgium. “On the condition that we introduce it correctly and use the revenues to make healthy food cheaper.”

Earlier research has shown that a tax of 10% on unhealthy food would lower the body mass index in the Belgian population enough to decrease the occurrence of obesity-related health issues – such as diabetes, heart disease and even cancer – to the point of saving 184,600 years of life in a 20-year period.