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How is "junk food" defined for food policies like taxes? A combination of food category, processing, and nutrients can determine which foods should be subject to health-related policies, according to a new analysis examining three decades of U.S. food policies by researchers at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.
[...] "There is a growing recognition that an unhealthy diet stems from overconsumption of what we colloquially refer to as 'junk food,' " said Jennifer Pomeranz, assistant professor of public health policy and management at NYU School of Global Public Health and the first author of the study, published in the journal Milbank Quarterly. "However, public health efforts to address junk food are hindered by a lack of a uniform method to define junk food for policy purposes."
One policy example where a definition for junk food is needed is a junk food tax, which raises the price of such products to reduce consumption and generate revenue for other programs to improve the nutrition and health of communities in need. Previous research by NYU and Tufts shows that taxes on junk food are administratively and legally feasible.
[...] They identified and analyzed 47 laws and bills from 1991 through 2021, including one active junk food tax law implemented by the Navajo Nation, three state snack food sales taxes that were later repealed, and numerous junk food tax bills that have not been enacted. (Their analysis did not include policies that solely focused on beverages such as soda taxes.)
[...] The researchers were surprised that no state tax laws or bills directed the state's public health department to define the foods subject to the tax, a practice regularly used at the federal level and a mechanism that states could use to have experts define the foods to be taxed.
The researchers further concluded that their analysis supports the use of junk food taxes implemented as excise taxes paid by manufacturers or distributors, rather than sales taxes that need to be administered by retailers and paid directly by consumers. Revenue from excise taxes can be earmarked for particular uses, including improving access to healthy food in low-resource communities.
"An advantage of excise taxes is that food companies may be motivated to reformulate their products to be healthier to avoid taxation," said study co-author Sean Cash of the Friedman School at Tufts. "Defining foods to be taxed is not a static exercise, as existing products are reformulated and thousands of new packaged foods are introduced each year—so how we tax foods is not just a tool for steering consumers away from the least healthy options, but also for encouraging healthy innovations in what ends up on the supermarket shelves."
(Score: 1) by the_olo on Sunday May 21 2023, @07:40AM (2 children)
I think there is an effective way to counter the escape of restrictions through reformulation.
The regulators need to base the criteria for food as close as possible on scientifically-proven, biologically significant and objectively lab-measurable properties.
So instead of declaring "tax on fries" which is easy to evade, the taxation criteria could be based on things such as glycemic index [wikipedia.org] (above a certain threshold the tax would kick in and grow higher the more glycemic index exceeds that threshold).
Other possible metrics could include the ratio of fermentable and non-digestible fiber to easily digestible carbohydrates (i.e. to glucose).
For fat component of foods, the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats.
Etc. etc.
These metrics should properly weed off harmful ingredients of food, and any reformulation would necessarily make the foods less harmful (e.g. lowering the glycemic index of a meal will practically always make it less harmful for insulin sensitivity).
(Score: 2) by gznork26 on Sunday May 21 2023, @10:44AM (1 child)
Thank you. Focusing on the glycemic index as a way to define junk food is an excellent solution.
It raises an interesting question, though. GI is not new, but this approach has not been taken. I suspect the reason has to do with how the situation must be understood: GI is a way to measure how a biological system responds to a complex mixture of ingredients. The typical method of regulation focuses on what is taken to be a proximate cause of the problem being regulated, so rules are made regarding some ingredient.
The distinction also exists in other areas. There is opposition to seeing and responding to systemic problems in society as well, with segments of the population insisting that systemic causes do not exist. So now I'm curious about whether focusing on a systemic element such as GI in dietary regulation would be met with similar resistance, and how it could be overcome.
If such opposition can be overcome in food regulation, how can the same approach be used in other areas?
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2023, @10:33AM
If you use GI then are watermelons, pineapples, bananas and mangoes junk food? https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/diabetes/best-and-worst-fruit-for-diabetics [goodrx.com]
How about sweet potatoes? https://www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/fruits-vegetables#fruits-and-vegetables [healthline.com]
Those Okinawans eating junk food every day and living past 90... 😉
High fat ice cream has a lower glycemic index than bananas and sweet potatoes (for most people the fat tends blunt the sugar spike)... More protein too.
FWIW I do actually think that lots of fruits are junk food: https://www.newsweek.com/zoo-weans-animals-fruit-because-its-increased-sugar-makes-them-fat-and-rots-1145259 [newsweek.com]
And most fruit juices are even worse...