This contribution resumes the award-winning communication with the Sespas Award for the best public health communication, at the XLIII AES Days, you celebrate in San Cristóbal de Laguna, of June 26-28, 2024.
Obesity is a significant public health problem in the world: more than one in two adults and almost one in six children have overbeapeso or obesity in OECD countries (OECD, 2017). In the United Kingdom, around 26% of adults were obese in 2021 (NHS Digital, 2022). The prevalence of obesity is increasing and contributes to the development of chronic cooling such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and some cancer moles, which gender a significant economic burden for garabonese grains. The exesive consumption of drinks and foods rich in these, sugars and salt (HFSS, for scholarship in English) is associated with a mayor risk of obesity and endary without transmissible (EMP) Revents with the diet (WHO, 2019). Taxes on this vupus and drinks have emerged as a frequency strategy used by governments to address the growing epidemic of obesity and those of frequencies (Caro et al., 2017).
Fiscal polyics that promote healthy diets have been recommended for the World Health Organization (WHO) as an option of public policy to address obesity. Aurmar The price of the feeds and unhealthy drinks through tax is a potential policy measure to prosecuted their excessive esse options. The night quality of food is a crucial determinant of health, since it is related conflicts in child growth and development, obesity in children and adults, diabetes, cardi of comfort, cancer and premature death.
For Uno, countries like Mexico (Batis et al., 2016), Denmark (Jansen et al., 2012), Colombia (Daniels, 2023), And Hungary (Biro, 2015) Have implemented taxes on saturated fats or ultraprocessed foods. Other countries have changed recently suspenders of the Value Added Tax (VAT) for food and drinks. Some have increased the percentage applied to high sugar content. For example, VAT reform in Spain, in 2021, raised the impest of sugary and sweetened beverages from 10% to 21% (general type). For the autumn, some countries have reduced taxes on essential food products to mitigate the effects of the recent crisis on the cost of life. However, hay a lack of evidence on whether foods with a high content of fats, sugar and salt are cheaper than healthy. Nor is it clear if low intimate families include more of these products in their diets.
This study, we examine the relationship between nutritional quality, prices and tax taxes on food products between different socio -economic groups in the United Kingdom. Our Director Contribution is to evaluate how VAT is applied to the feeds and drinks. To do this, we use novel data solorous family purchases of food in high VAT supermarkets compared to higher income families.
We find that the united Delino VAT schemes on food and drinks and a disproportionate charge to low -income households, which are the ones that spend a greater proportion of their intakes in taxed products. These families tend to register more HFSS type foods. Our analysis also that homes with children are more likely to obtain a mayor proportion of their calories, sugars and these a part of food considers non -healthy compared to homes without children.
Provided foods with high content of fats, sugar and salt (HFSS) vs. Non -HFSS foods, according to VAT rates (VAT, in English)
Note: This graph uses food categories consumed in the home and solid food groups (measured in grams) records in a two -week diary.
In short, our work brings two significant advances to existing literature.
- This study, we analyze the relationship between the VAT tax scheme in the United Kingdom and the nutritional content of food. We use nutritional profile models to assess whether food products taxed with higher VAT rates have lower nutritional quality compared to those that are exempt or have reduced rates. Our findings provide key evidence on the potential to use indirect taxes as a tool to improve the quality of consumer diet. Therefore, we contribute to the previous literature on the relationship between food prices and their nutritional quality, when studying this relationship using a rich set of data on family spending in a pavium of tall unglowers.
- Investigation of our contributes to the bunk on the relationship the relationship with the tax moles applied to food and their redistributive effects. In particular, we show that lower -income and here households with young children tend to allocate a greater proportion of their expenditure to taxed products with higher VAT rates, which suggests a disproportionate fiscal burden on these graps.
