Should the government stop subsidizing unhealthy foods and instead subsidize healthy foods?

Healthier food products are increasingly becoming pricier than the prices of unhealthy food products. People are cooking less and buying more unhealthy meals with high in fats, calories, sugar, and fructose corn syrup. For decades now, America has been struggling with rising obesity, but rather than invest in subsidizing healthy foods for people, the government has spend billions of dollars in subsidized unhealthy food products. The food businesses seem to only care about profit and they use cheaper ingredients, which happen to be unhealthy ingredients. The US Department of Agriculture spent $1.28 billion in 2011 to subsidize four ingredients that often end up in junk food like corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, and soybean oil.

As a result, it has increased rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and blood pressure. The government should make healthy food products more affordable, accessible, and invest more money in education on health nutrition. Unfortunately, the food industries are also not marketing healthier food products. If healthy food products were more affordable and accessible, than people would buy it more often and it could prevent health conditions. It could also reduce the costs of medical visits, prescription medication, and other health services due to unhealthy eating habits.

Mark Bittman, the New York Times food columnist, asks the question "Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables." he wrote about how the food industry needs stop focusing on making money off of unhealthy foods and create healthier products. He also wrote, "Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyper processed snacks.”

Do you think increasing the price of unhealthy foods will change peoples’ eating habits?