Is Junk Food Elastic or Inelastic?

The quantity demand for junk food with respect to price for me is inelastic. I know when the price goes up people will consume less junk food, however the decreasing demand is less than the increasing price. It is because the substitutes for junk foods (fast foods) is difficult to find by now, especially in US. The most fast and easy food to eat is junk food itself.  Based on “The Impact of Food Prices on Consumption: A Systematic Review of Research on the Price Elasticity of Demand for Food” journal, it says that “Price elasticities for foods and nonalcoholic beverages ranged from 0.27 to 0.81 (absolute values)”. We highlight that elasticities stated is less than 1%, so it is going to be inelastic. The idea behind this is that the buyer must buy the foods even if the price rises for 1%, because the demand will only reduce for lest than 1%. So we can know that price is not impactful toward the quantity demand in Junk Food.

Since it is inelastic then the dead-weight-loss will be small. It symbolizes that there is low ineffectiveness in the market because when the price is changed the quantity demand is approximately the same, not too much impacted.

I think taxing junk foods is a good idea especially to increase government income. However it would not help to reduce obesity in US. Taxation is the wrong tool to address obesity and make our diets healthier. The fact is the taxes effect all consumers regardless of their weight status. The impact of the food taxes is unpredictable and can result in product substitution which might consists similar or higher calories. We need to know that obesity is caused by life style, so  even people that eats vegetable everyday also possible to be obese people because they might have very lack exercises in a day. By those things, I think the food taxation will not reduce obesity number in US at all.