Raising taxes on prepared food items, and then using the added revenue to fund programs that encourage healthier diets, could cut the nation's healthcare cost substantially, argue a team of Boston researchers.

"With climbing rates of obesity, diabetes and other diet-related illnesses helping to drive health care expenses to an all-time high, we are at a crossroads," said Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was joined by colleagues from Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital in a call for greater government intervention in modifying the eating habits of Americans, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association .

"The strategies we rely on now -- labels on food packages and dietary guidelines -- place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of individual people to find, purchase, and eat healthy foods," Mozaffarian said in a news release about the joint opinion piece, but "given the complexities of our modern food environment, that is an uphill battle. We must start looking at enacting policies that help people navigate our complex food environment and adopt a healthier way of eating."

The researchers explained the goal of taxes and subsidies would be to improve overall dietary patterns, instead of reducing calorie intake.

As such, they propose slapping a flat tax of between 10-30 percent on nearly all packaged foods, along with foods served at most chain restaurants and large cafeteria vendors.

The tax revenue "would be used to offset the cost of subsidizing healthier foods such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, fish, beans, and whole grains, including in supermarkets and served to children in schools and after-school programs," continued the news release.

"We are encouraged by existing research linking public awareness campaigns and changes in the food supply to declines in cardiometabolic risk factors and chronic disease," explained David S. Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital. "It's clear that poor nutrition has a major role in some of the leading American health problems, including diabetes and heart disease. We must act now to reduce the financial barriers to more sensible dietary choices and help people live long, productive lives."

The size of such a tax could be based on a sliding scale determined by the nutritional quality of specific food items, the group suggested, encouraging restaurants and food manufacturers in turn to produce healthier products.

Prior research, said the release, has demonstrated higher-quality diets typically cost about $1.50 more per person, per day.

"With a modest 10-30% tax on most packaged foods, healthy foods such as fruits, nuts, and vegetables could be subsidized to cost pennies to consumers," Mozaffarian said. "This would dramatically reshape the food supply, help to reduce nutritional and health disparities amongst the poor and other disadvantaged Americans, and potentially save billions of dollars in year in health care costs for diet-related diseases."

Added Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics at Harvard: "We believe our proposal of a food tax and subsidy system would be faster to implement than other approaches ... reducing the rate of diet-related diseases and their economic costs would be a huge economic and welfare boost to Americans and help relieve pressures on the health care system."