A science blog with Eric Berger

Analysis: Tax rebates to get kids exercising don’t appear to work


There’s little question the United States has an obesity problem. The big question is what to do about it.

Lots of people hate the idea of a fat tax on sugary, fatty foods and sodas. An alternative is the concept of tax incentives to promote healthier living.

Prevalence of obesity in U.S. adults. The bible belt needs a bigger belt.

Canada has adopted this approach, offering parents a $500 non-refundable tax credit for enrolling their child in an approved physical activity program, for a maximum rebate of $75. This Children’s Fitness Tax Credit costs the Canadian government about $100 million annually.

There are also more localized efforts, such as Saskatchewan’s Active Family Benefits program, in which parents of children six to 14 years old can get an annual tax benefit of up to $150 per child for enrolling their kids in an approved cultural, recreational, or sports program.

But do such programs work?

A new paper (see abstract) in the American Journal of Public Health addresses whether these initiatives have succeeded in making kids healthier. The answer appears to be no.

The paper’s authors note:

“Tax expenditures aim to affect individual behaviors without addressing systemic factors that could be strong influences on those behaviors; for example, they give incentives to register in physical activity programs or to purchase equipment, but they do not necessarily affect the availability of such programs or of safe places to use the equipment.”

And later:

“The estimated costs of the tax-based programs in Canada are substantial; therefore, it is important to consider whether those public funds are better spent on other strategies that could instead provide direct public funding to improve recreational facilities and active transportation networks or to enhance physical activity programs in schools.”

Previous studies of these programs, which have been strongly supported by Canada’s fitness and exercise industry, have found that they tended to benefit wealthy families.

Found via Dr. Sharma.

Categories: Health
Eric Berger

34 Responses

  1. Rapture says:

    Make healthy food appetizing and junk food nauseating.

    • GS says:

      To those of us who have been eating healthy for a long time, healthy food IS appetizing, and junk food IS nauseating. People raised on junk just have warped taste buds.

      Tax the junk food companies. Don’t let them market their garbage. (Free speech should be for people; companies aren’t people.) Implement incentives to make healthy foods more readily available. Make more exercise-friendly public spaces.

  2. JimH says:

    I wonder if the easy availability of the internet and video games tracks with the increase in obesity. When I was a kid most “play” was done outdoors with other kids, video games were relegated to an arcade. Back then there was no cable TV with dedicated kids channels and frankly daytime TV sucked. We still had all of the candy, soda and snacks that you can get now. There is more fast food and it seems that parents tend to default to it when time is tight but I don’t think that it’s the main cause of obesity in children, it’s lack of physical activity.

  3. Alisonymous says:

    Here in Clear Lake, we lack the critical mass of recreational infrastructure that would be necessary for the successful promotion of physical activity. There are no longer places for young people to go to engage in the types of normal play that stimulate exercise (wrt those few parks that do exist, there are no safe or accessible routes to them). Commercial gyms do not accept kids below the age of 13, and according to author Richard Louv, studies have shown that most organized sports don’t provide enough exercise to make a material difference in obesity rates.

    In other words, young people are pretty much completely shut out of exercise opportunities. Even when kids succeed in copping an informal play-spot, they are usually driven off quite swiftly. The strip center containing the HEB grocery store on El Camino Real installed barriers to prevent skateboarding. There’s a concrete drainage culvert at one point along State Highway 96 where a collection of local skateboarders now assembles, and I’m counting the days until someone puts up barriers and signs to keep them out of there as well. And at that point, back to their TV sets and video games they will go.

    By virtue of this comprehensive lack of accessibility, no financial or tax incentives would ever work in promoting physical fitness – at least, not in an area like ours. The physical prerequisites simply do not exist at this time, so attempting to impose a financial stimulant would be a total lost cause.

    • 3v3 says:

      A while back my HOA decided they did not want kids playing (throwing a ball, basically) on a large, grassy esplanade, so they planted a bunch of trees and shrubs, put in a bench, etc. When the kids (middle school and older) tried to move their game to the HOA playground/park, they were told the park was for “small kids” only and they could not throw the ball on the large, grassy open area. They were told, literally, to go home.

  4. JohnD says:


    No wonders the tax credit doesn’t work; they can’t do math! Perhaps if they offered a $150 credit per child, with a maximum of $750 they would get a better response.

  5. lil ol me says:

    wow, a government program that doesn’t work and even has unintended consequences? whodathunkit?

    That’s the problem with liberalism: when their ‘better’ idea doesn’t work, it must be the victims’ fault and obviously that can be cured with yet another law to (attempt to) force compliance with the 1st.

  6. Madcougar says:

    How much would it cost for each elementary school to be supplied a tiger. I bet if we set a tiger lose on the playgound we could definitely get the little ones to run around.

    I’m not crazy! We would muzzle the tiger and declaw it first.

  7. Ed Truitt says:


    Uh… yes.

    Also, instead of a “fat tax”, how about we simply terminate the subsidies for corn that make it so danged cheap it gets put in *everything*? It seems, to me anyway, to be in-congruent (some might say hypocritic) to subsidize an industry whose product is so unhealthy that those who consume it are subject to a special tax. Also, given that lower-income folks tend to eat a lot more of the stuff, it seems to be really, really regressive.

    Just saying.


    • almostanative says:

      I have to agree about the corn. Since watermelons were so expensive due to the drought this summer, I was feeding my pet rats more corn instead. And wow, they have noticeably gained weight.

      I think this kind of gov’t money could better be spent studying the diets of different countries and what is fattening or not. Then maybe tax what is…

    • Meiczyslaw says:

      While you’re at it, can we get it out of our gas tanks, too?

      There’s a growing shortage of food in the world, and it seems to be connected with burning it up as fuel.

  8. Lizard says:

    What do all the Southeastern states shown in red with the highest obesity rates have in common? Lots and lots of fried foods. Being born in this area, with a mother from Alabama, that is how I learned to eat and cook. It took a conscious, rational understanding that continuing to eat that way would make me fat and shorten my life for me to make the decision to eat differently and exercise more. People are products of the culture they grow up in, but they aren’t condemned to live that way all their lives.

    • Lou says:

      Not really. It has much more to do with high amount of refined carbohydrate/sugar combined with less sport/exercise activity.

      You can eat high healthy fat (so many people get healthy part wrong)/low carb diet ala Paleo Diet and stay thin and produce much better cholesterol number compared to high carbs/low fat. will explain why.

      Excessive amount of fructose (soda, fruit, any sugary drink) will also give you fatty liver disease. To get rid of that, go on low carbs diet to help liver regain its health…

    • 3v3 says:

      Weather does not help. I am a prisoner of my air conditioned house from about April to November. I would love to get out and ride my bike or go for a run, but I cannot handle the heat/humidity. Also, it is simply a lot more fun to hike in Rockies, for example, than the Bayou. I agree, though, it is also the sweet tea and fried everything culture. Another factor, fruits and veggies are simply not as good here, since they have to be trucked in and are not the best quality to begin with…my husband is a Texan and never eats fruit, never has, and only likes two kinds of vegetables. His kids are the same. One will be lucky b/c she has his metabolism, but the boys will be like their mom (obese) unless they change their habits. They also don’t exercise. They use a golf cart to go one mile to their cousin’s house.

    • Meiczyslaw says:

      I think we also ignore genetics a little too much. What’s bad for one person is just fine for another.

      For example: feed my wife (who’s 85% Italian) fatty foods, and her cholesterol spikes like crazy. I don’t have that problem. (Fat doesn’t bother me at all.) My bane is carbs (like pasta!), as I’m 5th-generation diabetic.

  9. JimH says:

    You don’t need dedicated parks or green spaces for kids to play. When I was a kid, living in the city we played stick ball, line ball, street hockey etc. We were limited only by our imagination.

    • Alisonymous says:

      JimH, you’re missing a vital piece of info. When you (and I) were kids, there wasn’t the intense backlash against children that there is today. People of who-knows-what-possible-twisted-motivation now call the cops if they witness a simple game of street hockey. Even in places like the country under discussion in this thread, this kind of idiocy is endemic and is frightens kids away from the normal activities that people like us once enjoyed:
      I go door to door in my neighborhood reassuring people who live near me that (a) it’s OK for their children to play outside in the street (because the street is all we’ve got for them within striking distance) and (b) I will do whatever part I can to watch that they don’t encounter cars, strangers, or other neighbors of a nastier stripe.

  10. Bill says:

    . . and this is some of the reason we are trying to increase the national debt limit! Parents can’t take care of their children so the government (meaning us tax payers) has to try and do their jobs. Maybe they’re getting way too many food stamps.

  11. mattg says:

    participation from the kids and parents that are the fattest will not happen – like everything else that it is govt based that attempts to to correct the problem in the wrong group. Besides, why is a tax credit needed anyhow – the parents of the fat kids dont even pay taxes!

  12. mattg says:

    easy solution – make the produce isle very large and the junk food isle small or difficult to negotiate if you are a wide load

  13. gabriellyn says:

    So attempting to legislate healthy choices isn’t working? Wow, another shocking revelation.

  14. 3v3 says:

    In my neighborhood, the middle school and high school are only safely accessible by car. Forget walking or riding a bike unless you have a death wish–no sidewalk, no bike lane, not even a shoulder. We spend tons of money on other stuff but apparently roads to support all the new schools are an afterthought. So, kids either ride the bus or their parents drive them (even though they live 1/4 mile away). When we were kids, we walked to school or rode our bikes–it was about 3.5 miles each way. Also, we really did not have snacks. We had cold cereal (not sugary) or oatmeal for breakfast, a sack lunch, something small when we got home like fruit or a glass of milk (very rarely we might have a cookie), and then we had a normal dinner. My mom did not keep soda, chips, or sweets in the house. If we were bored, we were offered the options of read a book, ride a bike, go swimming, play a board game, or do hobbies like arts and crafts. TV and video games were not an option unless the weather was bad or we were sick!

  15. ObjectiveView says:

    When my kids were young, we kept our weight down and activity levels up by taking a family walk or a bike ride every evening. It was good bonding time for all of us, and both my kids (now in their teens and twenties) got into the habit of exercising daily.

    It’s unbearably hot right now, but Houston is actually a good location for being outdoors most of the year – and the only equipment to buy for walking is a good pair of shoes.

  16. xxx says:

    This is funny, “…offering parents a $500 non-refundable tax credit for enrolling their child…” They disconect the object of concern from the reward.

    Make available an after school program for everyone. The program will advance the self esteem of all participants. For the overweight, the teacher will design a program to reduce and after the 30% of the reduction target is reached, the kid gets a T shirt for the after school program. After the sixty percent range he gets a coat to wear to class.

    The objective is to alow the kid to develop a routine that will enhance his statute for competition with the skinny kids.

    Team the skinny with the overweight for half of the program. The skinny kids want to help the overweight beacuse at the end of the program, they will compete as partners for the last quester of the year.

    Now the not-overweight kids get 100% the competition and the games,m realizing that their exercise partner will be counting on them to win the grand prize….

    They can workout as a team afterhours and with supervision.

  17. xxx says:

    Dead String?

    Eric, I saw the national news (probably Channel 11) last night Los Almos

    There was a tanker truck dumping water (gravity driven) on the side of the road, in an ignorant and feable attempt to contribute to extinguishing the fire.

    Tell the guys in charge of putting out the fires at the top they are clowns. This comment is not directed at the scorched grassroots guys trying desperately to do their job in harms way.

    As politely as possible:

    • Every drop of water has a value of exponential importance fighting a fire
    • When you drop five hundred gallons on an area in which ten gallons will suffice, you lose efficiency
    o Effectiveness [(500-10)/500] = 98% inefficient
    o Time (not measurable)

    This reminds me of the dumping of water from the air, half the water probably will be outside the target area (height, with, evaporation, danger, etc.). The same thing applies to just dumping water from an airplane on to the fire and the BS I saw last night.

    Conserve water by controlling the application of water to where you think you need it, not where forces external can manipulate it.

    The faster water travels:
    • The less influence outside factors will affect the delivery.
    • You control the direction and stream
    • The further you can influence and control the environment

    Proposal: every time a drop of water goes onto the fire, it will be under pressure (not relying on gravity).

    • Take a two hundred thousand gallon gasoline truck
    • Empty it
    • Retrofit the tanks with:
    o Several P250 (portable water pumps) with two 2 ½ inch nozzles
     Steady Stream
     Fog applicators
    o Pressurize them with nitrogen gas compressed
    • Fill them with water
    • Set two streams driving down the road (Steady Stream for long distance) and fog for against the road

    Pump the water do not drop it. Pump the water from the airplanes or pick up 5 of them and deliver the truck by C130’s. Open the doors and “shoot” the water out.

    Are you guys insane?