More and more people are getting overweight. Some people think that increasing the price of fattening food items can solve this problem. Do you agree or disagree?
Obesity has become almost an epidemic today, and health activists argue that this challenge can be surmounted by making products laden with excessive fat, expensive. I disagree with this notion, as this can superficially deal with the issue but will not help eradicate it.
Nowadays, rather than food choices, corpulence is directly linked to hectic lifestyles almost everyone is exposed to. In the contemporary face-paced world, individuals are so absorbed in their work, they often neglect their health and lifestyle. Consequently, ready-made food becomes a convenient option. As per WHO, working professionals and students rely heavily on such products highlighting convenience that often outweighs cost.
Moreover, the connection between the prices of fattening content in meals and corpulent people is a misplaced notion: even the costly edible goods will fail to dissuade those used to consuming these goods regularly. This phenomenon cannot simply be controlled by increasing the prices of the products; habitual buyers would continue to purchase out of habit and convenience, and there is no force on earth, even excessive pricing, that can dissuade them from avoiding highly-processed packaged foods.
Similarly, lack of education about nutrition coupled with sedentary lifestyles exacerbate the situation, with the latter becoming an epidemic. Most rarely exert themselves physically while working, traveling and enjoying leisure, among others, and are likely to become overweight, regardless of their intake. Many studies have evidenced that even those consuming healthy diets develop larger girths due to them being indolent, so prices of foods are effectively disconnected from obesity.
In conclusion, charging more for edible products containing fatty ingredients is likely to fail in achieving the objective of alleviating incidence of obesity: this can be only achieved by encouraging people to abandon indolent ways of life and educating them about healthy food options.