Drive-Through Tax
Thanks to Jen Wade, I found this op-ed piece suggesting a tax on drive-through food to combat the "obesity epidemic."
"If the low “cost” of eating fast food is adding to the obesity problem, the solution involves increasing the cost, even in a nominal way. How do we give individuals the incentive to pay a little more — increased physical exertion, lack of convenience — to get their food? This is where a drive-through tax comes in."
What do you think? Do you use a drive-through? Would paying extra change your drive-through habits at all? Do you think those extra fifteen calories burned by walking into the store--or the inconvenience of having to go into the store at all--would make a difference? Or does it just piss you off?
"If the low “cost” of eating fast food is adding to the obesity problem, the solution involves increasing the cost, even in a nominal way. How do we give individuals the incentive to pay a little more — increased physical exertion, lack of convenience — to get their food? This is where a drive-through tax comes in."
What do you think? Do you use a drive-through? Would paying extra change your drive-through habits at all? Do you think those extra fifteen calories burned by walking into the store--or the inconvenience of having to go into the store at all--would make a difference? Or does it just piss you off?
posted by mo pie at 12:08 PM
21 Comments:
well, they've been taxing cigarettes and alcohol for some time now. I guess it's time for us fatties to take our turn.
A tax on take out would cause me to go INTO the grocery store rather than a drive-thru. But it probably wouldn't change my bad habits at all unfortunately. I'd just buy the fattening (YUMMY) stuff.
I think that so long as the tax were attached to the food's lack of nutritional content and/or presence of known health dangers with no redeeming values (e.g trans-fats)rather than simple calorie levels, it's a fabulous idea. It might draw attention to the fact that low-income children are now documented as suffering from vitamin-deficiency related diseases (e.g. rickets) because, given the lack of nearby grocery stores and the ready availability of cheaper junk food, that's all they're eating. Obviously it's not any kind of a full solution--but if the money were used to fund decent nutrition programs for families in that kind of fix, I'd happily pay more for my drive-through indulgences.
A noticeable tax on soda, for instance, would thus have substantial direct health benefits (encouraging people to drink milk, juice and tea) and indirect health benefits (fueling nutrition programs for the socioeconomically disadvantaged). I just don't see a down side.
Why the hell is it the government's job to make sure I eat my veggies? It needs to butt out of people's lives instead of trying to be our nanny. And the end result is it'll just be a tax on those with smaller budgets to blow on food.
And how come nobody seems to ask why "healthy" food is more expensive?
Why the hell is it the government's job to make sure I eat my veggies?
Because its the government's responsibility to take care of people when they get sick, and there have been some (disputed) studies saying that people who eat less healthily have greater health care costs down the road. Not a good answer, but it is true.
And how come nobody seems to ask why "healthy" food is more expensive?
Because things like HFCS (even without government corn subsidies) are cheap. And really, healthy food isn't that expensive. Healthy fast food is a bit more expensive because there isn't a demand for it. However, you can go to the supermarket and make up a couple of great sandwiches with organic veggies, cheese, et cetera for less than the cost of two McDonald's value meals, which is what the alternative often is.
Healthy food is more expensive, though, because you can't buy fresh vegetables in bulk, freeze or dehydrate them, and then reconstitute them into a tasty salad. Freshness is just not a part of the McDonald's m.o., and they use fatty, salty cooking preparations to hide the fact that the quality of their ingredients is low. It's an inherent problem in the food industry, and one that fast food restaurants have no real incentive to remedy.
I agree with the first anonymous that a tax like this would make the most sense if it were used to subsidize the cost of healthy foods, or maybe to fund healthier school lunches.
Unless the tax was prohibitive, I don't think it would change my habits much. And of course there are healthy options at many fast food places as well.
It doesn't really piss me off, but I think it's not at all an effective solution. It seems like people go "Oh well it worked with cigarettes, let's try it with food" and totally ignore the fact that while cigarettes are inherently unhealthy, food can be healthy, unhealthy, or both at once!
Since when is all fast food inherently "bad"? And what difference does it make whether you get it at a drive thru than by walking into the supermarket and buying the package of 20 cheese & beef burritos for $3?
No matter where you go, whether it be McDonald's or Shaw's Supermarket, you have choices as what you can eat. Who's eating better - the person who buys a salad with light dressing at McD's, or the person who buys a bag of lays and a carton of Ben & Jerry's at the corner store?
And I agree what JJ says - food is not inherently bad or good, unlike, say, cigarettes.
well, here's a twist on your idea: instead of adding a tax, remove the subsidies that go (indirectly) to fast food and junk food.
a huge component of fast food and junk food is corn, which is heavily subsidized by the US government. corn is obviously the sweetener in all the soda (not actual sugar, no, that's too expensive in light of the corn subsidies), but it goes much further, permeating everything. even the main ingredient in your beef and chicken is corn; feed animals are fed corn because it's so cheap because, again, of the government subsidies.
it's hidden subsidies in these food that has artificially deflated the prices, so we have the bizarre and nonsensical situation where UNprocessed food costs more than food that has had person-hours and machinery (both of which cost money) added to it, via the processing.
so, we are ALL already paying a huge tax for this food, whether we eat it or not. it's in the form of billions of dollars of government subsidies that go to corn and other crops.
and before anyone starts crying about family farmers, it's a myth that subisidies go to family farms. virtually all crop subsidies go to giganto-corporations, not family farmers. effectively, crop subsidies are corporate welfare hidden behind the image (only) of the family farmer. and that's why youre fast food is so cheap.
for more information, read The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. cut crop subsidies and put those billions of tax dollars into programs for the PEOPLE, not for corporations.
I think that the Government should keep it's dirty nose out of people's mouths as long as it is collecting major real estate and income taxes to fund a war to make the Supreme Idiot and his Arab and Texan friends super-rich. As a steady taxpayer, I resent the idea that the solution to every economic ill is to tax the middle and upper-middle class base which supports everything else in this damn country. If healthy food were dirt cheap or even free, THEN noone would have an excuse for being a fatass, but until then, I demand the right to choose whatever I want at the supermarket and when dining out. Please remember that we, as federal taxpayers, don't have the CHOICE of whether or not to pay taxes. When that happens, then the government can do whatever it wants.
p.s. food is NOT the same as cigarettes--you need to eat food to live, you don't need to smoke to live...
Hear, hear, Wendy!
I have to say, I am a little conflicted about this sort of thing. Wait - - no, I'm not. I think this is a bad idea. America has an ugly habit of punishing individuals for systemic problems. It's like taking a damp towel and patting at the edges of a house fire, hoping to put it out.
Like Wendy said - if we want to solve a public health problem, be it smoking, obesity, drug abuse, whatever, we have to go after the pushers, and that means regulating the corporations who are making bank on our poor health. Flogging the individuals who are, after all, only using the system as it was designed to be used, is not just mean - it's counterproductive.
It's been proven over and over again throughout history that people will do the easy thing. It's the way we're made. If America really wants to do something to improve people's health, it needs to get off its ass and ditch this Victorian ideal of individual responsibility. The individual can only do so much completely alone against the constant pressures of a system designed to undermine him.
Anyway, there's my two cents.
Frozen veggies are cheap, storable and still have all the good stuff in. OK, they're not salad, true. But salad is remarkably nutrient-poor for the amount of water and energy it takes to grow and transport it, which is partly why it's expensive.
Good meat is expensive, true, but there are other protein sources such as pulses which are very cheap indeed.
The downside is that you have to spend a bit of time on preparation, which many people don't want to use their limited free time to do. I don't much care for cooking myself, so I can totally understand that.
The problem with freezing vegetables, though, is that in most cases it destroys their molecular structure, rendering them mushy and unappealing. And salad is certainly NOT nutrient-poor for the energy that goes into it, especially compared to typical fast food fare. To produce the meat in a 1/4 pound hamburger you need to give a cow the equivalent of 4 pounds of grain and 1875 gallons of water. But the problem does remain that most healthy food does require fresh ingredients, which undermines the economies of scale fast food menus are built on. Even those fast food items which do contain fresh produce tend to use veggies with long shelf lives but little flavor or nutritional content (iceberg lettuce, anyone?)
As for the issue of punishing the consumer rather than the fast food industry, I'm not sure there's any way around that. Even if you follow Wendy's very good suggestion of ending corn subsidies, the increased food costs are not likely to come out of corporate profits, they'll be passed on to consumers. As I said earlier, I think one way to take the sting out of such a policy would be to use the leftover money to subsidize healthier food, but that will be of little comfort to die hard vegetable haters. But I don't see a way to disincentivize fast food without punishing its consumers.
By "punish" I didn't mean "cause to have a hard time." I agree that Americans would have a hard time making the shift from the current model to a healthier one, but I don't see that as a punishment, or the problem.
What I was referring to was the fact that currently, relatively little effort is made to change the system, whereas HUGE effort is put into convincing fat people that it's all our fault, and it's up to us as individuals to fix this problem that our entire economy is invested in perpetuating.
I lost my life for a couple of years because all I could think about was how many calories were going into my mouth and how many I was burning. I don't like the person I became during that time. I lost the better part of myself in my total preoccupation with shrinking my body, and I started looking at other people and judging them on appearance/ weight/ etc. way more than I ever did in the past (an unavoidable side effect, I think, of being constantly preoccupied with your own weight and appearance).
The thing is, not everyone is young, single and relatively well paid on a 30-hour work week, with no children and no health problems. The fact that I was able to fit four hours of exercise a day into my schedule, maintain iron control over what was available to eat at my house and divest myself of all other responsibilities so I would be free to spend 24 hours a day resisting the easy path was really rather...er...lucky, so to speak.
I've been through some hard times this year and, as Anne would have it, am back on the ham. Of the 120 pounds I lost, I've regained 40, and am constantly regarded with pity by the people who congratulated me before - but, you know...when I look at the woman I work with who killed herself to lose 20 lbs and go from a size 8 to size 6, and who looks at me with pity because I've "let myself go," I've stopped feeling ashamed.
For the past year, my weight has not been my priority. I've started two businesses, written a book and two plays, fallen in love, and dealt with major crises both at home and at work and I've come out of it all a much wiser person.
The size 6 woman, on the other hand, lost 20 pounds and got into a size 6, and she feels superior to me - more accomplished and disciplined than me - solely because of that. Sadly, many people agree with her.
I don't ever again want to be the woman who stays up until 3:00 in the morning in a blind panic, jogging in place in front of the television because she ate a piece of cake.
That doesn't mean I am happy with my weight - but, dude...we all have our crosses to bear. I figure if I had to eat a ham every couple of days to get through this year, more power to me. At least it's not heroin.
Which is why I, for one, would like as much help as I can get. If it's easier for me to walk than to drive, I'll walk. If fast food is cleaned up just a little (e.g. no trans fat, etc), it won't kill people, and most of us probably won't even notice a difference. If I could get my gym membership subsidized, or even paid for in its entirety, and if I could get a break on my healthcare costs for being able to prove I go 3 times a week, I'd be all over it (and so would a LOT of Americans - we LOVE a deal).
With all the brilliant manipulators this country produces, it shouldn't be beyond us to devise ways to make it desirable for people to eat well and move, rather than pursuing the current course of shaming them into flogging themselves into shape (usually temporarily), against all odds and with little practical help.
Anyway, end rant. Thanks for an interesting discussion!
Mary, the things you bring up are exactly the issues that the economist in the article is trying to address. The way it is now, the cheapest, easiest, fastest, and probably the closest food is McDonald's. If we want to change people's eating habits, that has to change, too, but I agree that simply making it harder to get McDonald's in the absence of creating an alternative is problematic.
It would be awesome if people walked everywhere instead of using drive-throughs, but you make towns walkable through good urban planning, not by building strip malls and then punishing people for using them.
We live in a right-this-minute sort of culture, and we criticize fast food users for behaving that way, but we don't criticize their jobs or their childcare situations or really bad city planning for putting them in such a damned unnecessary panicked rush. If we as a culture are determined to hurry, we need healthy food that can be acquired and eaten very very quickly. A salad from a drivethrough window might be the best we can do unless we think more about root causes and less about individual culpability. Thus, I say do not blame the drivethrough window, but rather the food that is handed through it. (and the corn subsidies. of course.)
...I started looking at other people and judging them on appearance/ weight/ etc. way more than I ever did in the past (an unavoidable side effect, I think, of being constantly preoccupied with your own weight and appearance).
I'm taking Mary's comment out of context, but it jumped out at me. My preoccupation with my weight and appearance (and losing weight *is* a full time job) has made me very judgemental. Maybe I'll be more forgiving of others as I get more used to living in my new body...
I know y'all already know this, but there are some super-good comments in here--Wendy, Mary Garden, and Claire M really stand out as thoughtful authors who take into account the complexities of a world in which government, industry, profit, and convenience all tangle together and one can't readily be separated from the other. Thank you all!
Regarding the tax, it's been said already: I'd pay astronomically higher taxes on all kinds of things if they really went to help people who need it, and provide vital services, rather than building one more bypass or getting handed to Haliburton in a fixed contract.
For those who aren't into cooking, I've lived that life...and I can only say is that if you give it a shot, choosing and cooking your own food is very addictive. It's not "just" that it's healthier (if you can put a price on health), it's that after a couple of years you come to see that virtually no one can make your food as good, and as geared to your personal taste, as you can yourself. Few restaurants steam your vegetables to that perfect consistency that comes with pulling it out at the crucial moment, use fresh lemon and extra-virgin olive oil on their salads instead of the cheaper stuff, or even sear that hamburger just the way you like it. Never thought I'd say this in a world which designates cooking as women's work, but there's an eerie amount of freedom to be found in doing for yourself--not the gourmet fancy-schmancy stuff, nor even necessarily soaking your own dried beans, but getting the best ingredients you can afford and fixing them the way you like them. Even with very little time to cook, homemade trumps most restaurants every time.
I am completely against "sin taxes". I don't care whether it is cigarettes, alcohol, or fast food. Legislators should mind their own business and their own waistlines, instead of arrogantly thinking that it is their place to "fix" everyone.
I completely agree that the government should stop nannying its citizens. At the same time, we just have to remember that when we wake up at the hospital stuck to a dialysis machine because our kidneys failed, are we going to expect the government to take care of us then?
That's generally the problem America is facing today. We want complete control of our lives. We shout at Congress, the House, and the President to butt out of our phone calls, stay out of our places of worship, and stay out of our decisions to eat that Big Mac. And I agree. However, it's generally these same people shouting 'privacy!' who end up shouting 'help!' when those bad decisions catch up with them. Then who gets to say 'I told you so.'?
That's what healthcare is. That's what welfare is. And social security. And medicare. And...and...
We want to run our own lives, yet we don't want to live up to our mistakes. We expect someone else to clean up after us so that we can move on to our next big independant action.
The point of this tangent? Simple: If you want to run your life, expect to reap what you sow. Let my taxes fix our roads, not pay for your healthcare when you collapse after eating one-too-many burgers.
Since Gas Prices keep going up this would be a good tax for all those cars that sit in the line and idle several minutes waiting for food
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