Abstract

Abstract Objective: To identify patterns of food taxes acceptability among French adults, and to investigate population characteristics associated with them. Design: Cross-sectional data from the NutriNet-Santé e-cohort. Participants completed an ad-hoc web-based questionnaire to test patterns of hypothetical food taxes acceptability (i.e., overall perception combined with reasons for supporting or not) on 8 food types: fatty foods, salty foods, sugary foods, fatty and salty foods, fatty and sugary products, meat products, foods/beverages with unfavorable front-of-pack nutrition label, “ultra-processed foods” (UPF). Sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics, and dietary intakes (24h-records) were self-reported. Latent class analysis was used to identify patterns of food taxes acceptability. Settings: NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort study. Participants: Adults (n= 27,900) engaged in the French NutriNet-Santé e-cohort. Results: The percentage of participants in favour of taxes ranged from 11.5% for fatty products to 78.0% for ultra-processed foods. Identified patterns were 1) “Support all food taxes” (16.9%), 2) “Support all but meat and fatty products taxes” (28.9%), 3) “Against all but UPF, Nutri-score, and salty products taxes” (26.5%), 4) “Against all food taxes” (8.6%), 5) “No opinion” (19.1%). Pattern 4 had higher proportions of participants with low socioeconomic status, body mass index above 30 kg/m2 and who had consumption of foods targeted by the tax above the median. Conclusion: Results provide strategic information for policy-makers responsible for designing food taxes and may help identify determinants of support for or opposition to food taxes in relation to individual or social characteristics or products taxed.