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Discussion - aims and objectives in term 2
Discussion - aims and objectives in term 2
- How much English did you speak over your break?
- At the end of last term we had a consolidation lesson in week 9. Take a few minutes to review the Padlet that you made, and discuss with your partner what you feel your strengths and weaknesses are in the four skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
- Take a look at the Assessment section of the Module Overview page. What do you need to achieve this term in order to progress to your chosen degree?
- What do the words on the right mean? Which ones can help you achieve your goals?
Linking texts together
Linking texts together
Last term, one of the ways we practised critical thinking in our discussions and in our writing was by drawing links between texts that we studied. Thinking about ways in which texts support or contradict each other shows that we're able to understand their main tenets and apply them to other situations. We're going to start this term with a quick review of this by looking at four texts which look at the problem of unhealthy eating and corrective action that governments could take to help mitigate the problems it causes.
Before we do that though, you might have noticed from the links above that we have changed dictionaries! And you thought this term would be more of the same! We are using the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with the layout and discuss with your group:
- What are the word lists? Which ones would be most useful for you?
- Look up one of the words from the short text above.
- What is the 'collocations' function?
- What does the 'synonyms' button tell you?
- Where can you check the pronunciation?
Task one - Reading for details
Task one - Reading for details
Work in groups of four. Each student is to read one of the texts below. When everyone's read their text, each person can choose one of the sets of questions below to ask another group member about their text.
- What type(s) of information does this text give about obesity?
- causes
- effects
- solutions
- statistics
- other information
2. What percentage of adults in England weigh too much?
3. Is obesity a problem among children?
4. What are some health problems that are caused by obesity?
5. How much money does the NHS spend on problems related to obesity per year?
6. What are some of the extra costs of obesity to the NHS in addition to treating obesity itself?
- What is the difference between a tax and a subsidy?
- What is ‘price elasticity’? If a tax on a product is effective, does that show price elasticity or price inelasticity?
- What is the effect of a tax that increases the price of sugary drinks by a fifth?
- Would a tax on fast food be effective? Find two points to support your answer.
- What other measure could help to reduce obesity, particularly for poorer groups?
- When did Denmark introduce a ‘fat tax’, and when was the tax abolished?
- What were the financial effects of this tax?
- Did the fat tax change people’s eating habits? Find three pieces of evidence to support your answer.
- Who opposed the tax?
- What does Denmark’s experience suggest about the effectiveness of taxing unhealthy food?
- What is the UK’s ‘sugar tax’? (research online if necessary)
- What did the authors investigate?
- What were the findings?
- According to the article, is the tax effective?
- Who do you think benefits from this tax?
Text 1
Text 1
Current levels of overweight and obesity
- A clear majority of the adult population in England is either overweight or obese. This rate – 61% – is higher than almost all other developed countries.
- Levels of overweight and obesity among children are also worryingly high – affecting one third of 10–11-year-olds and almost a quarter of 4–5-year-olds.
Health risks associated with obesity
- Compared with a healthy weight man, an obese man is five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, three times more likely to develop cancer of the colon, more than two and a half times more likely to develop high blood pressure – a major risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
- An obese woman, compared with a healthy weight woman, is almost thirteen times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, more than four times more likely to develop high blood pressure, more than three times more likely to have a heart attack.
- Risks for other diseases, including angina, gall bladder disease, liver disease, ovarian cancer, osteoarthritis and stroke, are also raised.
Impact on the NHS
- Currently, around 5–6% of the NHS’s total budget is spent on the disease consequences of overweight and obesity.
- A recent analysis of the economic burden of a range of risk factors for chronic disease estimated that overweight and obesity now cost the NHS £5.1bn per year.
- The need for specialist equipment in the NHS (for example, stronger beds and trolleys) and the requirement for additional or specialist staff (for example, attending more complex births by obese women) bring additional costs.
Text 2
Text 2
Taxes and subsidies are increasingly being considered as potential policy instruments to encourage consumers to improve their food and beverage consumption patterns and related health outcomes. This study provided a systematic review of recent U.S. studies on the price elasticity of demand for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and fast food, as well as the direct associations of prices/taxes with body weight outcomes. Price elasticity is a measure of how consumption changes if prices rise: for a price elastic product, consumption will fall if prices rise, but for a price inelastic product, consumption will not change if prices rise. New evidence suggests that SSBs are price elastic and that a tax which raises prices by 20% would reduce SSB consumption by 24%. A smaller body of evidence examined price effects on fast-food consumption and the limited number of price elasticity estimates available suggested that consumption was price inelastic, suggesting that a tax that raised the price of fast food by 20% would reduce consumption only by about 10%. Nonetheless, such a tax could have large implications at the population level because of the extent of caloric intake from fast food among the U.S. population, particularly among youths. Indeed, the review of fast-food prices and weight outcomes revealed that there was fairly consistent evidence suggesting that higher fast-food prices would reduce body weight among adolescents. Rather than taxing unhealthy food, lower fruit and vegetable prices are generally found to be associated with lower body weight outcomes among both low-income children and adults. This suggests that if subsidies reduced the cost of fruits and vegetables, this may be effective in reducing obesity for lower-socioeconomic groups. Pricing instruments should continue to be considered and evaluated as potential policy instruments to address public health risks.
Text 3
Text 3
Denmark’s tax on saturated fat was seen as a world-leading public health policy when it was introduced in October 2011, but it was abandoned fifteen months later when the unintended consequences became clear. The economic effects of the fat tax were almost invariably negative: it was blamed for helping inflation rise to 4.7% in a year in which real wages fell by 0.8% and it was widely criticised for making the poor poorer. The fat tax also had a very limited impact on the consumption of ‘unhealthy’ foods. One survey found that only 7% of the population reduced the amount of butter, cream and cheese they bought and another survey found that 80% of Danes did not change their shopping habits at all. Many Danes switched to cheaper brands or went over the border to Germany or Sweden to do their shopping. The fat tax was always controversial, and it became increasingly unpopular as time went on. Objections came not just from business owners, but also from trade unions, politicians, journalists and the general public. By October 2012, 70% of Danes considered the fat tax to be ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. The economic and political failure of the fat tax provides important lessons for policy-makers who are considering ‘health-related’ taxes on fat, sugar, ‘junk food’ and fizzy drinks. As other studies have concluded, the effect of these tax policies on calorie consumption and obesity is likely to be minimal.
Text 4
Text 4
The UK’s sugar tax, officially known as the ‘soft drinks industry levy’ was implemented in April 2018, and according to recent research it has significantly reduced the number of people buying sugary drinks. The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Sheffield, looked at an initiative led by a major UK leisure centre which introduced a 20p charge to all drinks with added sugar sold in their cafes and vending machines in a bid to help tackle obesity in South Yorkshire. The centre saw a 30 per cent reduction in the sales of sugar sweetened beverages as a result of the policy.
The biggest impact was on sales of the sugary drinks marketed for children. These are typically bought by parents for their children and the sales fell significantly when the price of those drinks was increased by 20p. The researchers of the study argue that it seems to have made parents think more about the choices they were making when buying drinks for their children. The authors claim it was an effective nudge to encourage people to buy healthier drinks, which makes this local initiative an example of how small changes can have a significant impact. The study concludes that the demand for full-fat drinks in leisure venues is highly elastic suggesting the policy is more effective for young people and, more specifically, when parents are purchasing drinks for their children.
Task two - Identifying arguments
Task two - Identifying arguments
In your groups, think about the essay title: To what extent can a tax on unhealthy food help reduce diseases related to obesity?
- Decide whether each text provides arguments for or against the efficacy of a tax on unhealthy foods.
- After reading the texts, what would be your answer to the essay question above?
- In what order would you refer to the four texts in your essay?
Task three - Language review
Task three - Language review
Last term we introduced concepts such as academic style, cohesion, paragraph structure and hedging.
- What are some of the features of academic style that we looked at in week 2 and week 3 last term?
- Are the texts above examples of an 'academic' style of writing? If so, how?
- Look at the sentences below which have been taken from the four texts. Identify examples of hedging in each sentence.
- This suggests that if subsidies reduced the cost of fruits and vegetables, this may be effective in reducing obesity for lower-socioeconomic groups.
- New evidence suggests that SSBs are price elastic.
- The effect of these tax policies on calorie consumption and obesity is likely to be minimal.
- This rate – 61% – is higher than almost all other developed countries.
- Such a tax could have large implications at the population level.
- Text two states that the tax could have implications at the population level. What do we mean by the term implications? Refer back to the work we did on conclusions in week 10 last term if you need a reminder.
Should this drink have a sugar tax?
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