Legal Measures in Relation to the Obesity Epidemic in Thailand

This article presents new challenge for Thai government, the obesity epidemic, and the measures that government implemented in order to curb the obesity growth. The obesity epidemic is a main factor in increasing the number of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This places a burden on public health management. In the ASEAN region, Thailand has the second most obese citizens.[1] Thai government has added an excise tax on sugary beverages and introduced compulsory regulation of nutritional labelling for some products. Yet obesity and NCDs still rise. Even-handed enforcement of every food and beverage producer, distributor, and seller in the disorganized Thai system would be unrealistic, so taxing all high saturated fat, sugar, and caloric intake is impossible. A first step might be to tax all products containing nutritional labelling, providing exact information about content, such as snack products. The most suitable fiscal measures is the excise tax undoubtedly due to its objectives and tax bases. Required content labelling, food advertising alerts, and mass media informational campaigns should also help inform the public. With these efforts, obesity intervention should be more effective in decreasing growth rate of obesity and NCDs in Thailand. With effective fiscal measures and non-fiscal measures adapted to Thai cultures and society patterns, the obesity growth rates may decrease, more or less, which will bring the benefits to our society. [1] Obesity Update 2017. OECD. Accessed on July 23, 2017. www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Obesity-Update-2017.pdf.