Fat Tax for Germany?

Being fingered as the fattest nation in Europe has really got the Germans' oversized panties in a bunch. The shock of outweighing the bulging Brits as the continent’s portliest people has sent Germany’s politicians into a crazed frenzy of legislative lunacy.

Scared that the Germans' reputation as sport-mad, health-conscious types is being consigned to the rubbish bin of history -- along with all the pizza boxes and burger wrappers -- German leaders are wracking their brains to come up with policies that help the populace shed their pounds.

Following on from the launch of the five-point action plan "Fit Instead of Fat," which the government hopes will promote more active lifestyles and encourage Germans to pay more attention to healthy nutrition, the powers-that-be are now grabbing at more desperate straws. The latest weapon in the Battle of the Bulge could be a "fat tax."

In response to the damning report from the International Association for the Study of Obesity, which found that 58.9 percent of German women are overweight and 75.4 percent of men tip the scales, the German government is proposing to increase the tax on foods that are high in calories. The thinking behind this is that the more expensive the food, the less likely people will want to eat it. Therefore, by abstaining from eating high-calorie, high-cost food, Germans will get thinner.

While there is more than a little bit of twisted logic in this thinking, the German government seems to be ignoring a couple of key factors which should potentially scupper the idea before the prices of chips and soft drinks even get the chance to go up.

Firstly, the idea that hiking the tax on a product will mean less people will buy it is historically flawed. The sales of cigarettes and alcohol have not suffered unduly through massive price increases over the years. If someone wants to smoke or have a drink, they will, regardless of price. The same can almost certainly be said for certain favorite fatty foods.

Secondly, the problem isn’t the amount of calories but what is done to burn them off. This is why the "Fit Instead of Fat" plan is a far better way of tackling the obesity problem. Germans aren't the fattest in Europe because they eat more calories but because they move less. This is particularly true of children.

So, rather than trying to price calorie-laden foods out of the common person's budget, the German government should think again. And if they really want to introduce bird-brained ideas to encourage people to lose weight, why not try a "Sitting on Your Backside Tax." People will be less willing to sit around gaining weight if it's taking precious cigarette and beer money away from them.