Retrofitting fiscal policies to reduce the double burden of malnutrition in Peru: A system dynamics modelling study
by Nora A. Escher, Judite Gonçalves, Anibal Velasquez Valdivia, Paul Crosland, Luis Huicho, J. Jaime Miranda, Christopher Millett, Paraskevi Seferidi Background Peru faces a double burden of malnutrition, characterised by the co-existence of overnutrition and undernutrition. Although several fiscal policies have been implemented to address nutrition challenges, these have been designed and…
Peru grapples with a dual issue of overnutrition and undernutrition, often referred to as the double burden of malnutrition. While various fiscal policies have been introduced to tackle these nutrition problems, they have been implemented independently, reducing their collective impact. This paper examines the potential effects of adapting unhealthy food and beverage taxation to serve a dual purpose in addressing both overnutrition and undernutrition in Peru.
To achieve a comprehensive understanding, researchers created a system dynamics model to forecast the prevalence of overweight and stunting among children and adults of reproductive age. This model was built using secondary data sources and published effect estimates. The researchers then tested several fiscal policy scenarios, all grounded in World Health Organization recommendations and Peru's existing policy framework.
The results showed that incorporating additional taxes on unhealthy food and beverages could potentially decrease the number of years individuals lived with adult overweight between 2024 and 2040 by -58.6 million (95% Uncertainty Interval [UI] [-77.7, -37.9]), mainly among the wealthiest citizens. Furthermore, reinvesting the tax revenue collected to expand the cash transfers offered through Peru’s existing conditional cash transfer program could reduce cumulative years lived with child stunting by up to 876 thousand (95% UI [-1,139, -567]) by 2040. An impressive 82% of these improvements would be among the poorest families.
It is important to note that this study is based on several assumptions about the impact of policy changes and societal responses. Additionally, the researchers did not include cost-effectiveness analysis due to the exclusion of older age groups. Despite these limitations, the findings suggest that retrofitting unhealthy food and beverage taxation to allocate revenues towards targeted welfare programs such as cash transfers has significant potential for 'double-duty' impacts on both overnutrition and undernutrition in Peru.
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