Fat and Getting Fatter — A Taxing Problem?

This article was written for a three-minute commentary and aired nationally on CBC radio. www.cbc.com
(Download the commentary — 5 files in MP3 Format 1- 2- 3- 4- 5 )

Over the last twenty years obesity in Canadian children increased dramatically. For boys it’s more than doubled and nearly tripled for girls. Today’s children are less and less inclined to follow the old parental suggestion to: "Eat your fruit and veggies and go out and play." In simple terms our children don’t move enough and eat too much calorie dense fast food.

Physical activity has been engineered out of our lives. Children are spending an increasing amount of their waking hours looking at screens, TV screens, computer screens, movie screens, and video-game screens. Many children watch more than 20 hours of TV for every hour of physical education they get in school. (See article in 'Well' - Summer 2000)

Eating habits are powerfully influenced by fast foods. In the past 40 years many fast food servings have quadrupled in size. This increase can be referred to as 'portion distortion.' The 1 1/2 oz. burger is now 6 oz., pop at the movies has gone from 8 oz. to 32 oz. Movie popcorn has metastasized from 3 cups to 16 cups. Size sells, whether it’s Biggie fries, Whoppers or super sized meals, but huge portions can result in biggie, whopping, super sized kids.

Advertising works and the suggestions of parents and educators are no match for the multiple billions the fast food industry. (Coca-Cola™ is spending one hundred million dollars just to sponsor the upcoming Harry Potter movie.) In order to level the advertising playing field it is necessary to have funding to sponsor healthy eating choices and to promote physical activity. I agree with the suggestion of two American researchers, Nestle and Jacobson, who've called for a modest tax on some of the products associated with caloric imbalance in kids. By designating a portion of the GST on each can of soft drink, package of potato chips and liter of gas, we would raise tens of millions of dollars that could be earmarked for positive lifestyle advertising. In California soft drinks are the only foods subject to the seven-and-a-quarter percent sales tax. It yields a multi-million dollar tax windfall. Arkansas levies a 2 cents per can tax on soft drinks, which raises $40 million per year and goes directly to health care.

Taxation of any sort is not palatable, but it is preferable to increasing numbers of overweight children and having problems such as "maturity onset diabetes" showing up in teenagers.

In some countries governments have shown the political will to shield children a little from the relentless barrage of fast food advertising. In 1992 Switzerland banned all TV advertising directed at children under the age of twelve. Ads have also been banned from children's television programming in Norway, Belgium, Ireland and Holland. The eating habits of North American children are widely considered an example of what other countries wish to avoid.

In Canada we have the perfect organization to administer 'wellness focussed' advertising, namely ParticipACTION, whose work is admired worldwide, but overlooked by our Federal Government. Give ParticipACTION a healthy budget and we'd see more Canadian kids eating well and going out to play.