对快餐征税能否改善饮食Taxing Fast Food to Improve Diets

There is no doubt that fast food is bad for our health and that people typically eat too much of it. However, there is quite a lot of debate over whether governments should step in and reduce the amount of fast food that people are eating. This essay will argue that they should certainly try to convince people to eat less fast food by taxing it. Some people might say that it’s up to an individual to eat less fast food, and that governments have no right to govern our diets. However, humans have evolved throughout millennia of scarcity to crave substances that were once quite rare and nutritious, like sugar and fat, but which are now so commonplace that they are in fact bad for us. Many people simply lack the ability to resist that temptation, and they gorge on sugary snacks every day, rotting their teeth and developing obesity and diabetes. They should be able to have the willpower to say no, but it is quite clear that they do not. On the other hand, governments have a vested interest in maintaining a healthy population, and even if they try to avoid exerting too much control over the lives of their people, the obesity epidemic is fast becoming a health crisis. The only responsible thing to do is to make some effort to cut fast food consumption in the wider population before these health problems spiral to an even worse extent. Governments around the world have already taxed particularly unhealthy items with substantial degrees of success. This should continue as it appears to lower sugar and fat consumption significantly. In conclusion, there are arguments both for and against government intervention, but it is probably best that governments intervene because it seems people simply cannot resist the allure of fast food.