The soda tax debate: more of the same
On June 3, the New York Times editorial page endorsed the idea of a tax on sugary sodas, and I especially liked the way the writer placed the issue in context:
Bigger fixes are needed, of course, starting with decent health care. The young need more exercise, healthier lunches and better education on nutrition. All consumers — not just those lucky enough to live near farms or large grocery stores — should be able to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. While we wait, Congress could impose an excise tax on sugary drinks — one of the main culprits in the obesity epidemic.
Yesterday, the Times published three letters in response, a set remarkable for concisely summarizing the same tired, old arguments.
From the American Beverage Association: “Balancing calories consumed with those expended through physical activity is the critical factor in preventing obesity. Therefore, we must continue to educate Americans about the importance of energy balance.” Yes, but that won’t be enough. As I have explained in previous posts, overeating calories has a much greater impact on weight gain than physical activity has in preventing it, and plenty of those overeaten calories come from sugary drinks these days.
Another writer, complaining that personal responsibility and parental responsibility have been lost in this discussion, then goes on to propose precisely the non-personal, societal approaches that the editorial was promoting: “Let’s try removing soda machines from our schools, providing healthier school lunches and ensuring that our gym classes are financed.”
Good ideas. But I still think soda taxes could be an interesting experiment, well worth a try.
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Comments
How does a child who is bombarded with tens of thousands of advertising messages a year “exercise personal responsibility”? And how does a parent subject to the same type of “marketing” and pressed for time do much better than the child?
I never had soda in my house, but my children were nonetheless offered soda everywhere else, including their school.
As to the tax, will it stop anyone from consuming this junk? Any evidence available on this?
Curious: Any countries in the world where a soda or sweet tax has been tried?
@Anthro and Sam (hi Sam)–a bunch of states have soda taxes but I don’t believe their impact on consumption patterns has been studied (the soft drink companies undoubtedly know, but are not saying). The analogy is with cigarette taxes, which proved to me the most important factor in discouraging kids from smoking. We don’t really know. That’s why I am calling this an experiment.
Well, it goes both ways, Marion. I mean, when I was in high school, I was eating along the lines of 3200 calories a day and still had a 30″ waist. Of course, I was playing basketball in the winter and swimming in the summer.
This is actually why low-fat diets at first seem to work, too: Of course athletes eat a lot of rice and pasta, BECAUSE they have so many calories. You wouldn’t believe how many times I told girls that in high school.
Of course, what the soft drink industry doesn’t tell you is that soda is a true empty calorie: No satiety, no nutritional value. And it promotes insulin resistance, which tends to decrease motivation for exercise.
BTW, have you seen the Coke packaging that says Coke is refreshing and hydrating? Yes, Coke is so proud of all the water it contains. As opposed to, I don’t know, water?
Thank you, Marion–I’m like a kid at a rock concert when I get one of your personal replies.
I take your point about the cigarette analogy, but one difference is that cigs can kill you and this is now widely known, but soda just makes you fat (which can kill you for sure, but seems to have less “fear factor”). I guess we’ll just have to wait for some studies (or for some journalist to get hold of some of that industry data!).
I don’t think taxing is the solution. Sugar is way too addicting that it’s not going to have much an effect on either curbing or stopping people from drink soda. Taxing will only push food manufacturers to “roll out” more “sugar water” like Vitamin Water.
I don’t think a tax will work. Cigarettes are taxed to death but that didn’t really stop anyone from smoking until years and years of increasing the tax made the product so expensive. Coupled with laws that restricted where a person could smoke (combined with heavy anti-smoking sentiment), smoking started to decline. And yet some people still smoke, regardless of the cost and health risks.
This is a free country. Either we allow sugary sodas or we don’t. And if we do, then people are free to make the stupid decision to drink them.
I think that the real issue is the % of sweetener to liquid in any given recipe. Some beverages are sweet and some are extra sweet. If we could identify and legislate an acceptable level of sweetener as a starting point, we can then slowly reduce that % over a period of years. This would slowly wean the country off of the sugar dependency as taste buds unwind. Taxing soda may not be the answer but tax incentives to manufacturers for the reduced sweetener product could help sales. I don’t see any problem with a 25% less sweetener product in the near future, going down to 35 or 40 % as soon as we can.
This issue is the same to me as trying to regulate consumption of alcohol or tobacco. It’s a complicated issue, because as you so rightly point out it touches on numerous topics, including parental responsibilities (the importance of which I, as a librarian, am only too familiar in the area of intellectual freedom) and nutrition for low-income individuals. In Brazil, malnutrition is rife amongst the poor in sugar-producing areas, because while inexpensive, sugar furnishes calories but not nutrition. I think one of the biggest culprits in the obesity epidemic in the US is not sugar, however, but high-fructose corn syrup, which is ubiquitous in processed foods of all kinds. I noted that there is an earlier post about HFCS which I look forward to reading. At any rate, I don’t believe a tax on soda will make an appreciable difference in preventing obesity, and wonder what effect it will have on low-income citizens. As you also note, solving the problem of obesity in this country would require a much larger set of approaches, chief amongst which is making it possible for all of us to be more active.