Professor: Today we’re going to discuss whether the government should tax unhealthy products, such as sugary drinks and junk food. On one hand, taxing these products could discourage people from consuming them and reduce health problems. On the other hand, some argue that such taxes unfairly target lower-income families who may rely on these products as affordable sources of food. If you had to choose, would you support or oppose taxing unhealthy products? Why?
Sam: I support the idea of taxing unhealthy products. These products are often high in sugar, salt, and fat, which can lead to serious health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. As you said, by taxing these products, the government can discourage people from consuming them and resolve some of these health issues. Moreover, the revenue generated can be used to fund advertising campaigns that promote healthy eating habits.
Tanya: I believe that such taxes are unfair to families that don’t have a lot of money. Wealthy people will not care about the taxes and their habits won’t change. Additionally, when prices go up, people usually try to save money by purchasing lower-quality products that are cheaper to begin with. If people start buying low-quality food they could suffer even more health problems. There are better solutions to this problem than taxes.
In my opinion, taxing unhealthy products are bad idea. I strongly agree with Tanya's opinion that it is unfair to people who don't have lots of money. I would also add that everything has its balance, and too much of everything always causes a problem. To be specific, moderate amount of sugary drinks and fast food is favorable to those who need a instant energy source regardless of its origin. For example, I am a student and sometimes I need some energy foods such as fast food and sugary drinks even though too much of them are bad for health, as a student who is on a budget, it gives me instant refreshment, and good thing about them is they are kind of cheaper too. So, in that way they also support lots of businesses.
Sam raised a relevant point that these products cause serious health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and etc. But I think he is missing the point that these health problems are not usually caused by such foods, but instead they are mainly caused by unhealthy lifestyles such as not exercising and eating too much, etc. If one adjust these lifestyles and exercise more often, such foods are not that problematic at all.
Overall though, I think taxing junk foods are not wise move.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 5
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 8 9
No. of Words: 219 150
No. of Characters: 971 900
No. of Different Words: 127 100
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.847 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.434 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.295 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 68 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 41 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 23 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 13 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.375 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 21.869 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.392 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.392 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.128 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 1