Nowadays a lot of new and sometimes unexpected problems arise before well-developed countries of Europe and North America. One of the most serious problems of modern post industrial societies is the problem of obesity which is particularly actual for the USA where it acquires an epidemic character and obesity has already been proclaimed as a national epidemic that threatens to the national security. Now it becomes obvious that the less protected part of the society is in a great danger. Certainly I mean children who suffer from obesity and the number of such children permanently grows despite all recent efforts undertaken by the American government. As a result such a serious problem demands quick and effective methods of prevention and a strong counteraction that could stop the spread of obesity. As for the solution of the problem there are suggested different ways to overcome it. They differ from a simple propaganda of a healthy way of life to quite radical such as the change of the taxation of fatty foods and companies producing and selling such food.
I would like to dwell upon the latter suggestion of the solution of the obesity problem. I called it quite radical because we see the consequences of such solution in the cigarette industry of the USA. I strongly believe that before introduction any tax changes we should analyze whether such changes would be effective or not. I suppose that taxes which aim at the decreasing consumption of fatty food, being similar to that of cigarette, would have similar results. As for the cigarette industry, such taxes evidently killed cigarette production in the USA but still there are a lot of smokers, in other words American cigarette industry is dead but cigarettes continue to kill people because of cigarette production in other countries. Probably, the same may happen with fast food industry that is a source of fatty and unhealthy food. Even nowadays a lot of products for McDonald's, Kentucky Chicken and alike are imported from countries of the third world. Also, I think it would unfair to introduce supplementary taxes because we will limit the choice of consumers and at the same time we will make the cheapest and probably the most popular food less affordable for consumers. Another consequence is the deterioration of socio-economical situation because food, being quite expensive, will limit investments of people who have a low income or, form the more pessimistic view point, they will become poor and marginal living from hand to mouth. Finally, all modern agriculture being fast food oriented will suffer greatly from new taxes while organic farming, being the only alternative, will demand new investments for the development.
Thus, I don't think that new taxes will be fair, just and effective. What then can be done in order to prevent the development of obesity from the early childhood? In my opinion the most important thing is a cultural shift in the food consumption for people get used to fast food whereas they have to realize that such food is extremely dangerous for their health and engender not only health but also social problems. At the same time, it must be economically supported. What I mean is that we should start with the mass production of healthy food that would make it cheaper and, consequently, more affordable and competitive in comparison with fatty food. In other words we should equalize the prices of healthy and fatty food but not due to increasing prices of the latter but on the contrary, more investments and development of healthy food production would decrease prices on that kind of food. Finally, we should regulate food advertising because fast food advertising is mainly children oriented but a child's consciousness is weak and dependent while healthy food remains in the shadow of its unhealthy counterpart.
The last thing I'd like to say in terms of conclusion is that new taxes seem to me unfair and not effective and before their introduction we should use other economical means limiting financial attractiveness of fatty food and promoting of healthy food and this process must be accompanied by changes in the culture of food consumption.
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