More and more people are becoming seriously overweight. Some people say that the price increase of fattening foods will solve this problem. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Overweight represents a serious problem in most developed countries. Health conditions due to the comorbidities related to obesity rates are at the highest levels in history and so are the costs for public and private health services. To cope with

this

situation, strategies have been purposed in order to diminish the impacts of people becoming fatter as it will be discussed as follows.

First

, governments have been advised by experts to extra-tax processed and ultra-processed foods so the prices could be less attractive for the consumers. Items

such

as soft drinks, packaged bread and buns, chips, candies, ice creams, boxed cake mixes, instant noodles,

for example

, play a relevant role in fattening diets. Once these products are more expensive, more taxes could be collected to fund health services and

then

minimize the effects of overweight and obesity in society. Unfortunately, to be implemented,

this

strategy has to overcome the power of the

food

industry. Processed

food

corporations invest a huge amount of money to influence people's habits to consume their high-levelled sugar and fat so colled delicious

food

.

Furthermore

, for generations, habits have been forged by competitors that literally mesmerize their potential costumers with attractive adverts especially conceived to satisfy the public's needs desiring unhealthy

food

.

This

multi-billionaire business invests millions to influence legislators and governments not to regulate their sector and limit their growth. So the lobbying activities represent and hurdle to the strategy of increasing those products prices. To conclude,

although

I believe that the price rise of processed and ultra-processed foods can represent an inhibitive nudge for consumption, in many countries, the observed scenarios show that it is not enough to influence the development of better eating habits among populations that have been strongly influenced by powerful corporations to consume fattening foods.