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According to recent reports and contrary to popular belief, French people can, and do, get fat. In fact, the French government is worried enough about the problem that they're considering raising taxes on food that are higher fat, sugar, and salt.
According to this report on MSNBC.com, the French government has been worried about obesity, especially childhood obesity, for a while now. Some campaigns they've tried in the past have been to encourage commuters to take the stairs instead of the escalator and to put prominent warnings on junk food packaging.
With a huge hole in the state health care budget to plug,though, some officials want to put higher taxes on unhealthy foods. The question that remains to be answered is, what constitutes "unhealthy"? Will the new taxes, up to 19.6% from 5.5%, apply only to processed junk food with high fat and sugar contents? Or will Frances traditional high fat cheeses and foie gras be included?
These questions are yet to be decided, but I personally cannot see the French government slapping high taxes on traditional foods for which the country is famous. How will it look when the French can't even afford their own cheese? Not only that, as Elastic Waistband points out, taxes don't dissuade that many people from doing, or eating, exactly what they want. Do you think the French government will put high taxes on its traditional foods?
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8-11-2008 @11:49AM Tim said... Eh, decadent food is a vice. Arguably a more innocent vice, but still a vice all the same. Tax it like cigarettes and liquor to help people live healthier, keeping the cost of health care down, and use the new revenue to help keep taxes that hurt poor people down.
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8-10-2008 @11:01PM marleyinoc said... That probably looks better than it tastes.
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8-11-2008 @12:24PM Katie said... What they (and the US) need to do is subsidize the healthy food, not tax the unhealthy stuff. No one will notice or they'll just pay the money. (or maybe both to offset the cost) If they make the healthy foods cheaper, they'll be more accessible to the people who claim eating healthy is too expensive.
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