Tightening the belt: Are food taxes improving public health in Tonga?
Dr Andrea Teng from Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo the University of Otago asks if Tonga’s approach of taxing unhealthy foods might be an effective way to improve public health
Published on 2 Whiringa-ā-rangi November 2023
In Aotearoa New Zealand, growing rates of obesity have increased the prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, especially among Māori and Pacific communities. In the face of a widespread ‘obesity epidemic’, the World Health Organization has recommended that countries adopt fiscal policies to promote healthy diets and improve public health. Many countries have implemented this advice in the form of taxes on sugary drinks, but far fewer have attempted to implement taxes on unhealthy foods. The efficacy of these kinds of interventions, and their potential impact on equity, remain poorly understood.
Across Moana-nui-a-Kiwa the Pacific Ocean, Tonga demonstrates one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. However, Tonga is also one of the few countries that has made significant progress on taxing unhealthy foods and beverages. Not only has Tonga introduced substantive taxes on over ten different high-fat and high-sugar products, it has also waived import taxes on selected healthy products such as fruit, vegetables, eggs and seafood.
With their Marsden Fund Standard grant, Dr Teng and associate investigator Dr Puloka will investigate the effects of Tonga’s world-leading, comprehensive taxation programme on real-world outcomes – including food prices, import volumes, domestic manufacturing, household expenditure, and equity. They will compare household expenditure on, and consumption of, taxed and untaxed items before and after the changes in tax policy, and explore how these factors are impacted by a household’s income. The results of this study will be compared to studies on food taxes elsewhere in the world, producing a synthesised understanding of the consequences of this kind of policy intervention.
This research will be one of the first to evaluate the effects of food taxes outside of Europe and North America, adding to a currently sparse literature on the topic. This important evaluation of Tonga’s food taxes is an excellent opportunity for global learning, and will help to inform best-practice policies to improve public health.