About one-third of the U.S. population is 20 percent or more overweight and is therefore at risk of suffering high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular diseases. To date, all theories on how to control the epidemic of obesity have failed in practice or even backfired. Brownell wants to stop it somewhere in the middle, to hold people responsible for their own weight loss but help them out a bit. In an ideal world, Brownell would have the government subsidize fruits and vegetables and tax foods with more than a certain number of grams of fat. Carrots should be dirt cheap, he says, but you should have to think twice before buying carrot cake.
Most people consider the fat tax a far-fetched idea.
Measuring fat content is not always practical. Hamburger meat has a certain percentage of fat, but most of it would melt away during grilling. Over the last decade, California, Maryland, and Maine instituted snack taxes levied mostly on junk food such as candy bars, potato chips, and soda. The Snack Food Association eventually killed the tax in all but one state. Short of the tax, though, other experiments with pricing incentives have had a dramatic effect on eating habits.