Abstract
Across Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), the Pacific and globally we are seeing a growing impact of the food environment on chronic disease burdens. In response, the World Health Organization recommends fiscal policies like taxes on sugary drinks and unhealthy foods. In our region,
Pacific countries have led the way with excise taxes on unhealthy food and drinks being introduced since the turn of the century. NZ is at risk of persisting major health burdens by not using such tools to improve the food environment. Furthermore, the revenue from levies on unhealthy food and drinks provides an opportunity to fund such initiatives as extending free healthy school lunches and/or free dental care.
The growing impact of the food environment on chronic disease is alarming and even more so for its significant cost and equity implications. Indeed, leaders of Pacific Island countries have declared a non-communicable disease (NCD) crisis reflecting the health and financial
implications of chronic disease. The food environment is strongly socially patterned and continues to contribute to underlying growing rates of NCDs in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) such as diabetes, cancer, and tooth decay. NZ (and Australia) has fallen behind many other countries, having not made any progress on introducing excise taxes on sugary drinks and their producers. Taxes on sugary drinks are now commonly used by more than one hundred other countries for obesity prevention. But New Zealand has not, as yet implemented any excise taxes on unhealthy foods or their producers. Such policies are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), are effective, and have been used for more than two decades by our Pacific neighbours.