In the battle against fat, 'psychologic' is more important than price logic

In its recently published advice to the Dutch government, the Council for Public Health and Health Care (Raad voor de Volksgezondheid en Zorg, RVZ) requests that the government consider the implementation of a fat tax. In short, the message states that if food is made more expensive, we will lose weight. But the effect of increasing prices must not be exaggerated. The demand for food products is relatively insensitive to changing prices. Food needs to be significantly more expensive to have an effect on demand. Increasing VAT by 13% will not work wonders.

Disturbing increase

That the RVZ is aiming at a preventive policy is in and of itself praiseworthy and important. Prevention is better than cure - both for individuals and for society as a whole. It is disturbing that illnesses related to habits of living inherent in our current prosperous society are resulting in increasing costs to the public. It is therefore important to recognise the possible effects of intervention, and demanding a political answer is by no means superfluous. However, the current Dutch government's attempt to solve the problem by increasing the VAT on food from 6% to 19% oversimplifies matters.
As well as there being insufficient support from within the government for this kind of measure - the RVZ must have known that its demand for a fat tax would fall on deaf ears - there also appears to be very little support from the general public. In order to increase support for this measure, it will be necessary to speak with people and not just about people, to discover the issues at hand and how people would respond to a fat tax.

Comfort and diversion

If one listens to people from the lower socio-economic groups - those groups which face a high degree of overweight and obesity - it becomes clear that while the price of food is important to them, it by no means always or automatically determines what and how much they eat. Despite their smaller budget, the price of food is only one of the factors influencing their purchasing behaviour. Taste, convenience, availability, habit, or dominant social norms also play a part. Irregular working hours or using food as comfort or diversion are some of the explanations which people give for their excessive food consumption. All of this points to the fact that it is unrealistic to reduce people's varied motivators of food choice behaviour down to the price of food.

Iron law

In addition, the RVZ's reasoning is remarkably naive when it comes to the expected effects of a fat tax. The RVZ claims that it is logical to place heavier taxes on food. After all, they state, isn't it an iron law of economics that demand for a product falls as the price increases? But the RVZ's logic isn't 'psychologic'. Consumers are more than just calculating price watchers and bargain hunters. In order to change eating patterns, we have to tap into people's lifestyles and experiences, look for ways to break habits, or find out what the social-emotional value of food is.

It would be a missed opportunity if the RVZ's advice were to result in a study into interventions in eating behaviour in which price logic is more important than 'psychologic'.