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| Budapest McDonald's |
Hungary has come up with a novel way of addressing its own debt crisis, a tax on junk food. According to a recent news posting on globalpost.com (
here), " Hungary is set to impose the world's most comprehensive junk-food tax, which the government hopes will improve eating habits while helping to rebalance its healthcare budget." The junk food tax passed Hungary's parliament in July and will go into effect on Sept. 1st. The expected revenue will pretty much pay for the medical care deficits the Hungarian government incurs, and is intended to encourage Hungarians to change their eating habits. In a letter of congratulations (
here), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) outlined the European struggle against obesity and related diseases, such as diabetes, which account for 86% of deaths in the European region. The letter stated that, "cardio-vascular diseases, which are partly diet-related, cost the EU economy in excess of €192 billion a year." That's over US$130 billion. The letter concludes, "EPHA wishes you every success in the implementation of this initiative and hopes that this will lead other countries in Europe to take positive action to tackle this issue."
Back in June, we looked at some of the issues concerning junk food and its advertising in a posting describing how megacorporations like McDonald's target children and young people in their junk food advertising (
here). It's good to see some nations taking the issue seriously enough to treat junk food as the public health hazard that it is. If only there could be more. Amen.
