Press. voanews.com
Customers in India’s southern state of Kerala will have to dig deeper
into their pockets each time they want to order a juicy burger, a cheese-laced
pizza or other fast food such as doughnuts and tacos. Vowing to combat rising
levels of obesity—Kerala has the second highest levels of obesity in the
country—the state government is imposing a 14.5 percent "fat tax" on
fast goods sold by branded restaurants such as McDonalds and Pizza Hut.
India's first 'fat tax'
Thomas Isaac, Kerala’s finance minister, says he took the cue from a
handful of countries that have experimented with similar taxes. India’s first such tax in the scenic, coastal
state will only affect a small section of the country’s increasingly affluent
middle class, whose appetite for Western-style fast food has grown over the
last decade-and-a-half. The measure has attracted national attention as India
confronts growing levels of obesity.
Critics question if it will actually deter people from getting their fix
of junk food, and skeptics suspect it is probably meant to garner more revenue.
Doctors and nutritionists, however, say it is a long overdue first step in that
the country urgently needs to address its expanding waistlines.
Addressing obesity
With half of Indians under 25,
worries center on young people in particular.
Anoop Misra, who heads the Center for Diabetes, Obesity and Cholesterol
at Fortis Hospital in New Delhi, has watched with rising alarm as more and more
people in their 20's and 30's walk into his clinic.
Strongly supporting the Kerala initiative, the doctor says, “We used to
see diabetes 20 years back, diabetes in 50 or 40 years of age. Now we are
seeing diabetes at 15 years of age, 18 years of age.” Misra says he hopes the
rest of the country will take the cue from the state’s fat tax.
Global brands such as Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's have been ramping up
their presence as the Indian fast food market grows exponentially while others
such as Johnny Rockets, Burger King, Wendy’s and Barcelos have begun making
forays. Fast food chains have not commented on the tax so far.
The Kerala government has rejected suggestions that the tax aims to
shore up its revenue, saying collections from such a tax will be small. Fast
food outlets have a relatively small presence in the southern state compared to
the north and the west.
Minister Isaac, who proposed the tax, says he simply sees it as a signal
to move back to traditional healthy eating, a practice he says is “going out of
fashion.”
While acknowledging the need to target unhealthy food, many in Kerala
point to local, deep-fried, highly popular local snacks and foods that are
often sold at wayside stalls and restaurants. The owner of a café in Kerala’s
Kochi city, Isaac Alexander, says the format does not seem fair as it excludes
such food.
“One food that is eaten widely in Kerala is the “paratha.” It is high in
fat, high in refined flour; it is cheap," he said. "It can't be taxed
because it is highly unorganized,” he said.
Raising awareness, not taxing
Doctors and nutritionists agree that the tax needs to target a range of
Indian snacks rich in trans fats that are sold throughout the country often on
wayside stalls, as well as sugary drinks.
“Is it enough? I don’t think so. We need to go much beyond the burgers
and the doughnuts and the French fries,” says Sheela Krishnaswamy, a
nutritionist who heads the Indian Dietetic Association in Bangalore. “It needs
to be done more scientifically. It needs to be done at what percentage of fat
in a food can the fat tax begin.”
“First you have to clear up the air, the water; many things are
there," he said. "This is a small thing.”. Others say the government
should focus more on raising awareness about fast food instead of using taxes
to influence people’s choices.
“If you go by even developed countries, nowadays teachers or classrooms
— they are training people, what should be eaten, and what should not be
eaten,” says IT engineer Gaurav Singh. Denmark, for example, scrapped a fat tax
when it found that customers were picking up their quota of high fat goods from
other countries.
Health experts agree that raising awareness is critical; but, Dr. Misra
feels that education alone is not doing the trick. “As I see every day, people, they are well
aware of what is good and what is bad, they will [still] most of the time veer
towards bad eating,” he said.
He compares the fat tax to a seatbelt law imposed some years back to
force people to use seatbelts. “Everybody has a seatbelt. Previously nobody was
wearing that, because there is a fine. So a certain amount of regulation has to
be brought in to change the habits of the people.”
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