People will eat more healthy food if prices are lowered and consume less unhealthy food and fewer sugary beverages if they cost more, say researchers who performed a meta-analysis of 30 studies on the issue. Co-author Ashkan Afshin said the meta-analysis demonstrated causality: “Our results show how 10 to 50 percent changes in price of foods and beverages at checkout could influence consumers’ purchasing behaviors over a relatively short period of time.”
A Tufts University release said that in the pooled analysis, each 10 percent decrease in the price of fruit and vegetables was followed by a 14 percent increase in consumption; for other healthy foods, a 10 percent reduction in price led to a 16 percent increase in consumption. Conversely, each 10 percent increase in the cost of sugary drinks led to a 7 percent decrease in consumption and a 10 percent increase in the cost of unhealthy fast food was followed by a 3 percent drop in consumption.
“Our findings suggest that subsidies and taxes are a highly effective tool for normalizing the price of foods toward their true societal costs,” said senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts’ nutrition school. ” This will not only prevent disease, but also reduce spiraling healthcare costs, which are causing tremendous strain on both private businesses and government budgets.”