Government Has No Right To Tax Or Ban Junk Food

The same rationale that informed public health policy against smoking - leading to higher tobacco taxes - has set its sights on junk food, Sullum argued during a luncheon sponsored the Montreal Economic Institute. "You're talking about protecting people from their own decisions," Sullum said in an interview before the speech. "What you put in your mouth and how much exercise you get, that's pretty personal. It doesn't get much more personal than that." Faced with a so-called obesity epidemic - eight per cent of children and 23 per cent of adults were obese in 2004, according to Statistics Canada - provincial governments are pursuing policies to separate people from their junk food. Ontario toyed with, but ultimately rejected, the idea of a fat tax but has banned junk food vending machines from elementary schools. In July, the province's health promotion minister vowed to target obesity as aggressively as tobacco through a number of yet-to-be revealed initiatives. "Fat is the new tobacco," Jim Watson said in making the announcement. In Quebec, politicians are considering a junk food tax that would send a "healthy message" to citizens while helping fund athletic programs. British Columbia has shown interest in banning junk food vending machines from schools. In Britain, a sweeping ban on junk food in the nation's schools-including chocolate bars - was announced Wednesday. Sullum believes that while governments have every right to protect the public against health risks posed communicable diseases and pollution, they have no authority to tell people what to eat. "It's a question of what people want," Sullum said. "What the anti-fat activists are saying is, people don't want what they ought to want, and therefore the government has to coercively change what they want." But for Toronto-area dietitian Lynn Roblin, government-directed eating guidelines are key to a healthy society. "Whatever government you're talking about, whether it's provincial or federal, they do have a role in promoting healthy lifestyles, definitely," Roblin said. Skyrocketing health-care costs are among the possible repercussions of government inaction on healthy eating, she added. "It would not be a responsible action for them to ignore this." While Sullum doesn't deny that North Americans are fatter now then they were 20 years ago, he maintains government policy aimed at restricting eating habits is not the answer. "For some people the solution is, they prefer to be fat," he said. "That's their choice and they should be permitted to make it." http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/09/28/pf-1239745.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on September 29, 2005]

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