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Health Experts Call for Soda Tax

Critics say it won't reduce obesity

By Sarah Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 17, 2009 11:00 AM CDT
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(Newser) – Health experts say a tax on sugary sodas would take a big bite out of the obesity epidemic, ABC News reports. Taxing "sugar-sweetened beverages is really a double-win," said the co-author of a new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We can raise much-needed dollars while likely reducing obesity prevalence, which is a major driver of health care costs," the paper reads.

Predictably, the idea has lots of critics, and they're not all from the soda industry. Some say it's unrealistic to think that higher prices will change habits. "I don't think it's necessarily true that the poor haven't heard that water's cheaper than soda," said a regulatory expert. Another issue: People could skip soda "yet land on equally unhealthy alternate choices," said the director of Duke's diet center.

A customer takes a bottle of Pepsi from a display at T & P Grocery in Hosford, Fla., on April 21, 2008.
A customer takes a bottle of Pepsi from a display at T & P Grocery in Hosford, Fla., on April 21, 2008.   (AP Photo/Phil Coale, file)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 35 comments
grassisntgreener
Sep 22, 2009 3:42 AM CDT
so would that apply to sugar free sodas as well?OUT OF HAND.
WallyEFunk
Sep 17, 2009 9:50 PM CDT
On a different note . Doctors in Alberta Canada, get paid more for operations on a obese person. It takes them longer.
serfinWI
Sep 17, 2009 5:32 AM CDT
And the government picking one bad guy business (soda) over another (fruit juice)?? (fats) to essentially lower their sales because of increased prices due to taxes is unfair and not free market. How would you like it if you owned a company that basically made the same thing (soda)as another (fruit juice, etc.), and the tax on your company was raised and not on the other? As of this writing, we don't have tax on food, in my state anyway.
Politics • Health • Money • US

 
obesity epidemic • public health • beverages • sugar • healthy eating • soda tax

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