Week 3- The Debate

Hello again, 

Welcome to week 3 of my blog journey. Today I was hoping to provide two resources that I have found on my previously mentioned topic, New Zealand government should adopt a policy of subsidising healthy foods by taxing unhealthy foods, with opposing arguments. Instead what I have found through my research is that it is widely accepted and agreed upon that such a policy would have positive effects. I found that almost all scholarly resources provide evidence of ways it can work and ways that could hinder its success. This is what I have provided below, firstly a paper that agrees on a policy but brings forward possible hindrances and the second paper focuses on what sort of success a policy could have.

Cornelsen, Green, Dangour, & Smith (2014, p. 22) suggest that a policy regarding the pricing of foods and beverages is only one instrument within the food environment and cannot be the single answer. The authors go on to explain the lack of understanding and proof in what indirect effects a pricing policy would have, be it positive or negative. For instance, if a subsidy applied makes one food cheaper this allows more funds to be spent elsewhere, it doesn’t mean that the money will be spent on another healthy option. Another issue that Cornelsen et al. (2014) bring forward is the difference in spending behaviours within different socioeconomic groups, meaning a policy may have different effects for a different group. What I believe the authors of this paper have brought into the wider research is instead of looking for one answer to the problem look to change the entirety of the food environment to influence our diet behaviours and choices for the better.

The second paper I have brought forward today is one that goes through the procedure of measuring the possible effect that a policy may have on mortality from diet related disease within New Zealand. Cliona, Eyles, Genc, Scarborough, Rayner, Mizdrak, Nnoaham, & Blakely (2015) estimates that applying a number of diet related taxes and subsidies could avert or postpone deaths by between 560 to 2400 lives every year. Furthermore, the author's study estimates a drop-in purchase on taxed goods and an increase in purchases of subsidised goods, meaning they would expect positive effects on dietary habits and choices. I feel the authors were using this study to bring to attention the estimated amount of deaths prevented or postponed by the introduction of a policy to make people aware of how significant it can be. I think they wrote this paper in a position of hope that more would look further into initiating such a policy in the near future.

As I stated in my introduction, I have found it hard to source references of a scholarly level that is completely against the use of such a policy, for this reason, I have hoped to provide two references that may encourage further thought and research from my readers.

Reference List:

Cornelsen, L., Green, R., Dangour, A., & Smith, R. (2014). Why fat taxes won’t make us thin

. Journal of Public Health, 37(1), 18-23.

Cliona, N, M., Eyles, H., Genc, M., Scarborough, P., Rayner, M., Mizdrak, A., Nnoaham, K.,

& Blakely, T. (2015). Effects of health-related food taxes and subsidies on mortality from diet-related disease in New Zealand: An econometric-epidemiologic modelling study. PLoS, 10(7).