Food Cops: Tax Junk Food To Change Eating Habits

The food police have argued amongst themselves for many years over how to change consumers' eating habits. Some have suggested that 'pricing strategies' (i.e. higher taxes) may change behavior while others say subsidies for healthy foods are the way to encourage people to eat fruits, vegetables and whole grains. The thought is that if you make it cheaper, people will eat more of it, more expensive and people will eat less. To sort out the controversy, a team of researchers from the University of Buffalo set out to determine in the laboratory which method is best for dictating to consumers what's good for them, taxes on junk food or subsidies for healthy food. Their results appear this month in Psychological Science. read more

Read the whole article on

More from