Effort to Reduce the Incidence of Obesity in The US

WLAC Effort to Reduce the Incidence of Obesity in The US Discussion Responses

1.Respond to the following prompt in a post with a minimum of 200 words.

In your own words, what is utility? Can utility be measured? Can you measure your own utility? Can someone else measure your utility? Why or why not? Can social welfare be measured by “adding up” peoples’ utilities? Why or why not? If not by using utility, how can policy makers estimate the welfare of government policies?

2. Respond to the following prompts in a post with a minimum of 200 words

• Recently there has been discussion in the news about taxing junk food (soft drinks, for example) in an effort to reduce the incidence of obesity in the U.S. Do you think the demand for junk food is elastic or inelastic with respect to price?
• Based on your knowledge of the price elasticity of demand, do you think the deadweight loss of a soda/junk-food tax would be relatively large or relatively small? Why? Do you think taxing junk food would be a good idea? Based on your analysis, would it really help reduce the number of obese people in the United States? Explain.