Rising prevalence of obesity among adults and children is a major policy issue in many countries. Two widely discussed … instruments to address obesity are a tax on unhealthy foods (fat tax) and a subsidy on healthy foods (thin subsidy). We compare … for healthy and unhealthy meals. We show that the policy which reduces obesity under the most general conditions is the …

obesity. The sales tax can stimulate the consumption of healthy meals by lowering the time costs of food preparation. Moreover …, the sales tax lowers obesity under more general conditions than a tax on unhealthy food (fat tax) and a subsidy on healthy … counterproductive and increases weight. While both the sales tax and the fat tax mitigate obesity, the former imposes a lower excess …