In modern world people are heavily reliant on junk food to keep pace with their ever-busy life. As a consequence, people are falling ill due to different diseases which sometimes can be morbid. Some suggest that to prevent such tendency the government should impose hefty duty on fast food. I strongly disagree with this notion as putting higher tax on fast food will have little to no effect on a vast majority and it might backfire by forcing many businesses to shut down.
To begin with, although putting heavier tax will raise the price substantially, it will not create any notable impact as still a bigger section of the society will not mind spending more on fast food either because they are addicted to it or they don’t have any other alternative. For instance, if a working person can’t have enough cooking time at home, they need to buy fast food irrespective of the hiked price. On a similar note, a fast-food fanatic would not care the increased value of the food because it is what they crave for. Moreover, producers might compromise the food quality to reduce cost and can severely affect the health of the consumer.
Secondly, heavier taxes will force many producers to go out of business as they would not be able to cope up with the hiked price and retain their customer base. As a result, it will create an unemployment problem in the society rather than preventing people from consuming junk food. Many small businesses were shut down during COVID 19 but there was no shortage of willing customers who purchased from the internet. This goes on to show that even if there is lesser number of shops, fast food customer number doesn’t go down.
However, some people have the contrasting belief that implementing heavy tax on junk food can impact positively by increasing government revenue which can contribute to further development of the people. Although, this is true to some extent, it will not be able to prevent people from buying fast food which is one of the primary reasons of their sickness. If the government doesn’t have a healthy workforce, no development project can be undertaken and the money will sit idle. The authority should try to raise awareness instead and implement stringent legislation on advertising and distribution of fast food which will prove to be far more impactful.
In conclusion, the government should look into making policies and raising awareness rather than imposing heavy tax on fast food if they want a healthy population.