Doctors call for VAT on fatty foods

Monday, 9 June 2003 12:00 AM

Doctors are to consider calls for VAT to be put on fatty foods to help fight growing levels of obesity in the UK.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has suggested the tax for foods such as biscuits, cakes and processed meals.

Food is currently exempt from VAT. However obesity is currently costing the NHS more than £500 million a year.

A public health doctors' conference this week will discuss a motion by Dr Martin Breach which says: 'Given the epidemic of obesity related disease in the UK, this conference strongly supports the concept of a tax on saturated fats, in effect a VAT on fat.'

The UK's is rated the eighth most obese nation in the world, with one in four Britons likely to be obese by 2010.

In 2000 a study predicted that between 900 and 1,000 premature deaths a year in the UK could be prevented by a tax on fatty foods. However the tax is seen as being regressive because people on lower incomes tend to eat proportionally larger quantities of cheaper, high-fat food.

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