in a bid to combat obesity and heart disease denmark and hungary have imposed a tax on high calorie foods will this initiative find takers here citizens of denmark and hungary are still getting used to the idea of shelling out more money for that extra cheese butter and other high calorie food in their diet fatty foods have contributed to an obesity crisis in the us and europe and is becoming a major cause for concern in urban india considering india has a growing population that is battling lifestyle diseases such as diabetes heart disease and obesity bt asks people whether it makes sense to impose a tax on fatty foods here would you charge a fat tax ravi sharma and nicolo morea owners of a popular eatery say in countries where the rate of obesity is growing in particular among teenagers something like this would seem a good idea however in our restaurants the food is fresh and healthy we try to steer clear of fatty or excessively oily food moreover customers are already paying so many taxes so why add another people are wellinformed about which foods to eat and avoid and they will choose meldan dcunha owner of a goan eatery adds its an interesting concept but i doubt restaurant owners will introduce it if you plan to impose a tax like this you have to educate the consumer about the importance of doing so otherwise they will not be able to stomach this move its not practical dr ramen goel a metabolic surgeon says the indian population has grown up on rich food and sweets prepared with lots of ghee samosas and vada pavs are a daily staple for a majority of the population hence its difficult to impose regulations on every vada pav stall selling these snacks besides while this may deprive certain sections of fatty food lovers people who have the money will just go ahead and pay extra for it thus defeating the purpose of such a regulation besides in the past it has been noticed that such regulations dont necessarily work people have to pay taxes even on cigarettes but that has not stopped them from smoking dr manish motwani an obesity surgeon adds i think its a wonderful concept but it would be hard to impose on small joints in the city instead they can extend this regulation to cover larger fast food joints that youngsters frequent cravings vs economics rohan sharma 30 recently had surgery to lose the extra pounds he gained thanks to living on a diet of cheesy pizzas and burgers he says i would spend 60 per cent of my income on junk food and had to pay for it when the scales tipped to announce my growing weight i could not move around easily and would get tired quickly so to get my life on track i had to go in for surgery looking back now at my lifestyle i realise i was doing a