Taxing fat does little but tax our intelligence

Consistently poor lifestyle choices cannot be solved by taxing individual foods that on the whole, most of us rarely eat, and where we do, eat in moderation. No fat tax can effectively tackle the core reason for our poor diets: our lack of self-discipline.

Moreover, the problem with a fat tax is that it doesn’t create the right incentives. Making “bad food” more expensive will not discourage us from purchasing it. Anyone who’s anyone knows that the reason we eat burgers or ice cream isn’t because it costs a lot less - you could feed a family of four much more cheaply by ducking into the supermarket and picking up a BBQ chicken - rather it’s because we like the taste. Taxing fatty foods wouldn’t change how tasty a donor kebab is at 3am after an all-nighter at the pub. We all know we’d pay a premium for something we enjoy, especially after four or five beers.

Often the argument is made that a fat tax has a precedent: that we already tax a range of things that we think people should consume in moderation, such as alcohol and cigarettes, so taxing fattening food is merely an application of those taxes to fatty foods.

Well, wait just a minute. First of all, making that parallel assumes that the taxes on those products are appropriate. Putting that aside for just a moment, it also assumes that those taxes work to deter consumption. The consumption of cigarettes and alcohol is notoriously inelastic, that is, even large changes in the prices of those goods have little impact on our demand for them. They simply don’t work to discourage consumption.

The taxes are just another way for a nanny state to tax the legitimate choices of members of society. Legitimate? Yes. Of course choosing to consume an alcoholic beverage or smoking a cigarette or eating a hamburger is a legitimate choice to be made.

Dangerous, you say? Sure, the link between smoking and a range of diseases has been proved, but does that give the government the right to mandate those choices for people? No. The fact that there is so much evidence to prove that there is a link between these so called horrible vices and a range of diseases, and in spite of that, people choose to smoke or drink, must mean that they just don’t care. They place a higher value on smoking or drinking, than on a supposed healthier lifestyle. Smokers would prefer a cigarette than a longer life. Drinkers prefer to have a spot of wine with dinner and accept the risk of developing, say, heart disease. I prefer a portion of French fries than a slender belly. We accept the risks associated with a chosen course of action.

In a society that respects the freedom of individual choice, those are legitimate choices to make. When a government places a tax on those choices, it says that individuals are incapable of making these decisions themselves, even though that decision may well be a very well informed one. Just because popular opinion believes that being slim is better than being fat, is no justification for stopping people from living their lives as they see fit.

The ability to make these choices independently of the state for ourselves is a core feature of our liberal democracy. As John Stuart Mill said, “there is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.” (On Liberty).

The only time where we can tolerate an interference with individual autonomy, with the choices that we make for ourselves, Mill argued, is to prevent harm to others. As Mill said, “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil … Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

But even if you do accept that there should be a tax on alcohol and cigarettes, food is certainly in a different category of its own. No study could ever prove that occasionally eating fatty foods leads to any sort of disease. Absent any harm, government interference in the choices of individuals is completely unwarranted.

Ah, but of course, then comes the next argument: allowing people to make those choices means that they will become a burden on the state health system. For that argument to hold, there would need to be a tax on any risky activity, like sport, or sky diving, or driving a car.

Millions of accidents take place while playing sport, or undertaking adventure activities or even while driving a car. These accidents place a huge strain on the health system. We don’t place a tax on playing sport or even on sky diving and bungee jumping.