Can you imagine if we let companies poor waste into a river and taxed you if you swam in it?

I get your point, but we can regulate against dumping waste into a river without anyone except the polluters cracking the shits about it.

What would the equivalent look like for junk food? Regulation where they set a maximum sugar level for every category of product? That could maybe work, but it'd be a big and contested undertaking, and I'm guessing some portion of the voting population would crack the shits about not being able to get exactly what they used to get, and how the limits in place are arbitrary and unfair in some way.

The UK tax on sugar content in soft drinks did result in manufacturers reformulating drinks to have less sugar (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11156274/), so that's an example where a tax reduced the 'dumping waste into the river'.

Or are you just suggesting banning advertising of junk food? I agree that seems totally viable and should be pursued.

Personally, I think the first priority should be fixing the Health Star Rating system. It was ruined by the liberals making it a relative rating within each category of product, not an absolute rating that actually helps people make healthier choices overall (e.g. it might encourage people to buy a healthier variety of biscuits, but it doesn't encourage them to not buy biscuits at all). They should also make it mandatory.

I'm surprised this article doesn't mention the Health Star Rating, actually. The first step for consumers making good choices is to give consumers good information. I get the article is trying to highlight economic and geographic factors, but still.

A business would likely retort: "But there's demand for it!"

That's also the rationale I've heard from cocaine dealers, but at least they had the high ground to say "and I can make sure they get the safer pure stuff".

It's a tradition: penal colony food.

Marketing definitely plays a part, don’t get me wrong - but unhealthy food is cheap, and we are still in a cost of living crisis here in Australia.

These foods are pumped to the gills with simple starches, sugars and fats to make them hyper-palatable - short-circuiting our brain impulses, leading to addiction - and play havoc with our leptin/ghrelin hormones levels leaving us hungry shortly thereafter, leading to over-eating.