FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Next month, after three years of legislative tug-of-war, the Navajo Nation will become the first place in the United States to impose a tax on junk food, according to a Mother Jones report. The Healthy Diné Nation Act of 2014, signed into law last November, mandates a 2% sales tax on pastries, chips, soda, desserts, fried foods, sweetened beverages and other products with "minimal-to-no-nutritional value" sold within the borders of the nation's largest reservation.
The legislation was modeled on existing taxes on tobacco and alcohol, as well as other fat and sugar tax initiatives outside the United States.
The sales tax will generate an estimated $1 million a year in 110 tribal chapters for wellness projects.
The USDA has identified nearly all of the Navajo Nation as a food desert, meaning heavily processed foods are more available than fresh produce and fruit.
According to a 2014 report from the Diné Policy Institute there are just 10 full-service grocery stores on the entire Navajo reservation, a territory about the size of West Virginia that straddles parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
While this is the first "junk-food tax" in the United States, the movement to slow the consumption of unhealthy foods gained momentum last November after residents of Berkeley, Calif., voted to tax soda and other sweetened beverages.
Click here to read the entire Mother Jones story.
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