Argumentative Essay On Junk Food

708 Words3 Pages

Commentary: “Junk food tax and vegetable subsidies could save australia billions of dollars”

The article describes how putting a tax on junk food and more subsidies on vegetables could save 3 billion on healthcare and add almost 500,000 extra years of life.

According to the article, there are rising rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer and putting a tax on junk foods are hopefully going to add 500,000 years of life to australia with a population of 23 billion and save $3 billion on health care costs. Many countries have already put this into play, such as France and Mexico.

The consumption of junk food is a negative externality of consumption, eating junk food has caused a lot of diseases and obesity and leads to a serious number of health conditions. Individuals are forced to seek medical care and treatment with the consumption of these good. Most diseases are preventable if junk food was not so easily accessible to consumers.
The time and money spent on treating patients with health conditions exacerbated by their very poor diets. This negative externality is one of the sources of market failure because people can buy junk food anywhere for very cheap prices, whilst organic vegetables can be more expensive than a packet of chips in a supermarket.

The diagram above represents negative externalities. The deadweight loss in the diagram refers to the overconsumption of junk food because supply and demand is out of equilibrium. The external costs are ignored

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