FSA’s bid to fight obesity with ‘fat tax’
The Food Standards Agency is planning to hold an “internal discussion” to discuss the issue of food price in relation to healthy eating later this year, in its attempt to combat obesity.
The FSA is however keen to point out that it will “not be a proposal to impose a so-called fat tax.”
A spokesman for the FSA confirms that the board of the organisation plans to hold an internal meeting on food prices later in the autumn.
“We will be talking about the issue of price as a whole in determining the price of food in regards to healthy eating,” he says.
Any added tax on processed foods and sugary drinks and snacks, in the form of increased VAT, for instance, is likely to be welcomed by lobbyists and also the Government, which will is expected to see this as yet aother opportunity to plug its deficit.
One in five of all children in the UK are classified as obese, according to the Department of Health.
This story first appeared on pitch
