The Ontario Medical Association is urging the government to introduce  a tax on junk food in an effort to encourage people to make healthier choices.

Doctors belonging to the association held a news conference Monday to raise awareness about what they called an “obesity epidemic.”

The OMA hailed successful anti-tobacco campaigns as examples of ways government can curb bad behaviour.

The association recommended mimicking those campaigns including:

  • Restricting the marketing of junk food to children
  • Increasing taxes on junk food while decreasing taxes on health food
  • Placing a graphic warning label on pop and unhealthy foods that contain little or no nutritional value
  • Restricting the sale of junk foods in sports/recreation facilities where young people are known to frequent

“Anti-tobacco campaigns have helped to reduce smoking rates in Ontario from close to 50 per cent in the 1960s to less than 20 per cent today,” the OMA said in a news release Tuesday. “Tax increases were the most important reason for this success, followed by public information (including disturbing images of diseased lungs and other graphic depictions of the negative effects of smoking), removal of retail tobacco displays, and advertising bans.”

The OMA’s suggestions comes just two weeks after Statistics Canada released new figures on children’s health.

The stats showed that 31.5 per cent (or 1 in 3) of kids between the ages of five and 17 years old are overweight. Furthermore, stats show that 75 per cent of obese kids become obese adults.

In the 1980s, only 18 per cent of children were considered obese.

Speaking to CP24 after the news conference, the president of the OMA said obesity is a major issue for Canadians, especially in Ontario where 60 per cent of residents are considered either overweight or obese.

“They’re at risk for liver disease, cancer, kidney disease – a whole slew of things,” said Dr. Doug Weir.

He said part of the problem is that people have misconceptions about what is nutritious and what is not.

Fruit juice is a drink that many people think is healthy but that in reality, contains more calories and sugar than a soda.

A combination of education, affordability and marketing restrictions will help steer people in the right direction, he said.

Weir said Ontario’s Liberal government has been supportive of anti-obesity initiatives and he’s hopeful they will be on board to accept the OMA’s recommendations.

But the association’s suggestions were not well-received by everyone.

An official with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the OMA’s reasoning for a new tax amounted to “quack economics."

“It’s a great idea in theory but it’s never worked in practice and it’s had a destructive economic impact wherever it’s been tried,” Gregory Thomas, director of CTF Ontario, said in an interview with CTV News.

He pointed to Denmark who introduced a food tax back in 2011. Thomas said the tax led to bakeries and production plants closing down,  which in turn led to job losses and cross-border food shopping.

“If you double the price of poutine is anybody really going to get any healthier or are we just going to run small business people out of business?”

“It’s bad medicine for the Ontario economy and it’s not going to have the effects the doctors say it will,” he said.

He dismissed the OMA’s comparison to the anti-tobacco campaigns.

“Tobacco is a lethal is substance, food is not,” he said.

@SandieBenitah is on Twitter. For instant breaking news, follow @CP24 on Twitter.