Fat Tax

I'm watching the Channel 4 news and the question of what to do about our current obesity problem is being discussed. The question is how to discourage people from eating too much of the wrong things. One idea seems to be to tax sugary and fatty foods in order to drive prices up and discourage people from buying it. There is the discouragement factor to this but there is a further logic that I can detect, a logic that is present in the taxing of alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol and cigarettes cause harm to health, people choose to smoke and drink, they go the NHS for treatment, they cost the state and taxpayers money. The taxing of these products is not just a discouragement but also a way of charging smokers and drinkers for the costs they will incur on the state and taxpayers. Perhaps we need to ask whether alcohol and cigarettes and food can be treated in the same way.