Introduction
This is a report about the rise of obesity globally and also in Australia. It will include an analysis of the overview of the obesity epidemic, the analysis of how the fat tax policy solution will discourage the eating of unhealthy food and also potential issues of implementing the fat tax.
Overview of the obesity epidemic
According to World Health Organisation (2013), “Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.” The size of obesity in the world has double since 1980 and in 2008, 35% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight, and 11% were obese. The percentage amounts to more than 140 million adults, 20 and older, being overweight. Of these over 200 million men and nearly 300 million women were obese. 65% of the world's population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. More than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011.
According to Access Economics, (2006), 3.24million of Australians are considered as obese in 2005 and of these 1.52million were male and 1.72million were female. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), obesity has increased for adults aged 18years and over from, 61.2% in 2007–08 and 56.3% in 1995 to 63.4% in 2011 to 2012.
Furthermore, according to Access Economics, (2006), people with obesity have a higher relative risk of health problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, osteoarthritis, cancers, and other health conditions. The financial health costs and other financial and non-financial costs in the Australian economy were affected by the impacts of these health conditions. Due to this impact, the cost of running hospitals, healthcare services and research have increased. Financial costs are for example, loss in productivity, deadweight loss from transfers and non-financial are for example, disability, loss of wellbeing and premature death.
How a Fat tax would work...