VISIT any culinary establishment in Budapest and some of the reasons why Hungary is the most obese country in Europe will soon become clear. In the coffee houses, you’ll see dobostorta, a five-layer chocolate buttercream concoction topped with glazed caramel; somloi galuska, a chocolate and rum sponge cake; and gesztenyepure, a chestnut purée served with whipped cream. In markets you can buy slabs of fried dough covered in cheese, bread served with goose fat and lumps of lard and, of course, lashings of goulash.

According to new data released by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, almost two-thirds of Hungarians are overweight and nearly a third are obese. Hungarians eat fewer vegetables than most people in the rich world and more salt than any other EU state. Educated Hungarian men are at least as likely to be overweight as their unschooled male compatriots. Uneducated Hungarian women are 60% likelier to be obese than educated women; in slim Italy uneducated women are three times more likely to be obese. Hungarians’ life expectancy is five years below the EU average: 76.

In 2011 Viktor Orban, the prime minister, declared that those who “live unhealthily” would have to pay more tax. That year his government, led by the populist Fidesz party, introduced one of the broadest levies on unhealthy foods in the world. Dubbed the “chips tax” it applies to sugar, salt, fat, booze and energy drinks. The rate changes depending on the type of food: the tax adds 250 forints ($0.91) to the cost of a litre of energy drink, for instance, and 500 forints to the cost of a kilogram of jam.

The policy has had some success. One review showed that 40% of manufacturers tweaked their recipes to use fewer unhealthy ingredients. Another study found that consumers shifted to cheaper, often healthier products. Three years after the tax was introduced, the consumption of sugary drinks had fallen by a tenth, says Michele Cecchini, an analyst at the OECD. By 2015 the tax had generated 61.3bn forints to help cover the cost of public health care.

Other European countries are also attempting to trim waistlines by performing paysliposuction. In 2011 Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fats. Just 15 months later, however, as prices rose and Danes began popping over to Germany or Sweden to load up on lard, the policy was abandoned. In 2018 Britain (the second most obese country in Europe) will introduce a sugar tax that is expected to add 8p to a 70p can of Coke. Spain and Estonia have announced similar plans. Hungary’s example may tip the scales in Europe’s fight against fat. Hold the dumplings and pass the cucumber salad.