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As #COVID-19 drives action on obesity, could 'soda taxes' work for food?

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In both the UK and France, a number of parliamentarians are pushing for new taxes on certain food products, building on the example of existing soda taxes which charge levies for drinks with high sugar content. Advocates of the policies want governments to leverage their influence over pricing and address Europeans’ expanding waistlines via their wallets.

Indeed, across the EU, nutritional experts and public health officials are seeking new ways of promoting healthier eating habits, including the introduction of junk food advertising restrictions and fruit and vegetable subsidies. Public opinion seems to be in favour of an interventionist approach: 71% of Britons support subsidising healthy foods and almost half (45%) are in favour of taxing unhealthy ones. Similar trends have been observed across Europe.

While these ideas seem on the surface to make straightforward logical sense, they bring with them a far thornier set of questions. How will European governments actually determine which foods are healthy and which are unhealthy? Which products will they tax, and which ones will they subsidise?

Tackling obesity head-on

It’s little surprise the British government is now ramping up plans to tackle the obesity epidemic. In 2015, 57% of the UK populace was overweight, with the World Health Organisation predicting that percentage will reach 69% by 2030; one in 10 British children are obese before they even begin their schooling. The coronavirus pandemic has further underlined the dangers of unhealthy eating. 8% of British COVID sufferers are morbidly obese, despite a mere 2.9% of the population falling into this weight classification.

The Prime Minister himself has personal experience with the dangers of this particular comorbidity. Boris Johnson was admitted to intensive care with coronavirus symptoms earlier this year, and while he remains clinically obese, his attitudes towards tackling the problem have clearly changed. In addition to shedding 14 lbs, Johnson has performed an about-turn on his views on food legislation, after previously dubbing levies on unhealthy products “sin stealth taxes” that were symptomatic of a “creeping nanny state”.

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Johnson now advocates tighter regulation of junk food marketing and clearer calorie counts on restaurant menu items, while campaigners urge him to consider subsidising healthier options. A report from non-profit thinktank Demos found almost 20 million people in the UK cannot afford to eat healthier produce, while recent research indicates subsidising healthier foodstuffs would be more effective in fighting obesity than taxing unhealthier ones.

France appears to be following a similar course of action. A senatorial report released in late May received cross-party approval and could be enshrined in French law in the near future. Alongside detailed analysis of France’s deteriorating diets, the report contains 20 concrete proposals for solving the crisis. One of those proposals involves taxing unhealthy food products, which the study’s authors state should be defined in accordance with France’s Nutri-Score front of pack (FOP) labelling system – one of the candidates currently being considered by the European Commission for use across the European Union.

The battle of the FOP labels

While the recently unveiled Farm 2 Fork (F2F) strategy sets out a process for adopting a uniform FOP system across the entire EU, the Commission has thus far refrained from endorsing any one candidate. The debate over labels could have a drastic impact on how individual member states answer these key questions, not least because it is bringing the complexities of defining what constitutes a balanced diet into sharp focus.

The Nutri-Score FOP system operates upon a colour-coded sliding scale, with foods perceived to have the highest nutritional value graded “A” and shaded dark green, while those with the poorest content are given an “E” certification and marked red. Proponents argue Nutri-Score quickly and clearly demonstrates nutritional data to customers and helps them to make informed decisions. The system has already been adopted on a voluntary basis by countries including Belgium, Luxembourg, and of course France.

However, the system has numerous detractors. Most vocal among these is Italy, which argues that many of the country’s signature food products (including its famous olive oils and its cured meats) are penalised by Nutri-Score, even though the country’s traditional Mediterranean diet is lauded as one of the healthiest in the world.

As an alternative, Italy has proposed its own Nutrinform FOP label, which does not categorise foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather presents nutritional information in the form of a charging battery infographic. Nutrinform was approved by the European Commission (EC) for commercial use just this month, while agriculture ministers from other southern EU countries, including Romania and Greece, have spoken out in favour of the Italian position.

France itself seems to have noticed the potential repercussions of Nutri-Score when it comes to the country’s most important culinary products – and especially its cheeses. By the French government’s own admission, the Nutri-Score algorithm for calculating grades has been “adapted” when it comes to products like cheese and butter, lest the system undermine the appeal of French dairy products.

That special treatment has not satisfied all of Nutri-Score’s French critics, however, with figures like French senator Jean Bizet warning of potential “negative effects” on the dairy sector. Nutri-Score’s real-world effectiveness in influencing consumer decisions has also been questioned, with researchers finding the FOP label only improved the “nutritional quality” of the foods consumers ultimately bought by 2.5%.

The heated nature of this debate helps explain why the Commission is struggling to standardise FOP labelling across European shelves. It also reflects the deep levels of disagreement over what constitutes a balanced, healthy diet, both between and within individual EU member states. Before legislators or regulators in London, Paris, or other European capitals can make concrete policy decisions on taxing or subsidising particular foods, they will need to find satisfactory answers to the questions that will invariably surround their chosen criteria.

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EU Reporter publishes articles from a variety of outside sources which express a wide range of viewpoints. The positions taken in these articles are not necessarily those of EU Reporter.

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