Search results: soda tax

Here’s a report from the World Health Organization on the effects of taxing sugar-sweetened beverages.

The study:

Consumption of SSBs is associated with increased risk of overweight and obesity (5), cardiovascular events (6), hypertension (7) and diabetes (8). There is now substantial evidence that SSB taxes can both discourage consumption and encourage reformulation (9,10). SSB taxes have also been found to have positive impacts on population weight and to potentially have greater health benefits among lower socioeconomic populations (11,12)….This study takes a policy analysis lens to studying SSB tax adoption and implementation in the WHO European Region. The focus was on the politicoeconomic and stakeholder dynamics in cross-sectoral policy-making, as well as considering adaptation in policy design.

https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/publications/2022/sugar-sweetened-beverage-taxes-in-the-who-european-region-success-through-lessons-learned-and-challenges-faced-2022

https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/publications/2022/sugar-sweetened-beverage-taxes-in-the-who-european-region-success-through-lessons-learned-and-challenges-faced-2022

• Be adapted to a country’s legislative, fiscal, economic and health context.
• Be designed and implemented through collaboration between finance and health policy-makers.
• Take revenues into consideration.
• Expect opposition from industry.

On this last point, the report says:

SSB taxes were strongly opposed by actors in the food and beverage industry in all the study countries, before and after  implementation. Industry made strong public statements regarding the negative economic impact that the tax would have on industry, particularly in relation to employment. In Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland and Portugal, they also argued that the tax would be regressive and, therefore, have a negative impact on consumers. In Belgium, Finland, France and Hungary (notably, these were earlier taxes), industry actors raised concerns that the tax singled out beverages and/or the beverage industry for differential taxation. Industry actors also presented a range of arguments regarding the taxes being ineffective and poorly designed.

Soda tax advocates need strategies to counter this opposition.  Plenty are available.  See the toolkit at Healthy Food America, for example.

I’ve just received a copy of Larry Tramutola’s The People VS Big Soda: Strategies for Winning Soda Tax Elections.

Larry was involved in the successful Berkeley soda tax initiative, and this is his account of how they won an election wtih an astonishing plurality of 76%.  I consider this initiative to be a model of how to do food advocacy, and it’s great to have this practical guide to the details of starting a campaign like this or, for that matter, any other food campaign.

He covers such matters as:

• Coalition building
• Dealing with industry arguments
• Framing the issue
• Recruiting volunteers
• Winning despite limited financial resources
• Building power, step by step
• Staying with it no matter what happens

These are important lessons for anyone involved in food advocacy.

I can’t find anything about this booklet online, which means that if you want one, you must contact him at:

I’m out of the country for a few weeks (México) and missed the House hearing on whether SNAP-eligible food items should continue to include sugary beverages.

From what I gather, most witnesses opposed any change in the program, with one from the American Enterprise Institute the lone holdout.

As I discussed in the chapter on SNAP in Soda Politics, I continue to think that taking sugar-sweetened beverages out of the package is a no brainer.

• They are sugars and water and have no nutritional value.
• Tons of research links their consumption to a higher risk for obesity and its consequences.
• SNAP recipients spend a lot of taxpayer money on them.
• SNAP recipients may well have worse diets and higher proportions of chronic disease than equally poor people who do not get SNAP benefits.
• Surveys say that SNAP recipients would not mind this change.
• SNAP recipients can always buy sodas with their own cash.

I recognize that not everyone sees things this way.  I suspect that people opposed to this idea are worried that any change to SNAP will leave it vulnerable to cuts, and they could well be right.

Here are their arguments:

• The Hill: Restricting what recipients of SNAP benefits eat won’t fix nutritional issues
• FoodDive: Grocery and food industry to Congress: No SNAP soda ban
• Washington Post: How liberals undermine the food stamp program
• Politico: Few fans for restricting SNAP purchases

Politico provides some sound bites on the topic:

• “Food surveillance violates the basic principles of this great country.” — Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.)
• “What can we do to incentivize rather than punish?” — Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.)
• “If you want to do a pilot program, I’m happy to co-sponsor one at the White House. I’m worried about our president’s eating habits.” — Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Ma.)

The state of Maine, however, has just renewed its request to USDA to remove sugar-sweetened beverages and candy from SNAP-eligible items.

Maine believes the purchase of sugar sweetened beverages and candy is detrimental to the health of the SNAP population, and is antithetical to the purpose of the SNAP program.

SNAP is supposed to be a nutrition program, no?  Nutrition is about a lot more than calories (and this from someone who wrote a book about calories).

The World Health Organization took two actions yesterday to encourage people to cut down on consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

It issued a report urging national governments to consider taxes: “Taxes on sugary drinks: Why do it?  

Governments can take a number of actions to improve availability and access to healthy foods and have a positive influence on the food people choose to consume. A major action for comprehensive programmes aimed at reducing consumption of sugars is taxation of sugary drinks. Just as taxing tobacco helps to reduce tobacco use, taxing sugary drinks can help reduce consumption of sugars.

It defines sugar drinks as products that contain added sugar, corn or fruit-juice concentrates and include carbonates, fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy and vitamin water drinks, sweetened iced tea, and lemonade.

It also took immediate action to remove sugary drinks from its Geneva headquarters

The agency explained this action:

The move signifies how seriously WHO is taking its leadership role in implementing policies to improve public health…By implementing this policy WHO is setting a positive example for Member States, other organizations and visitors…WHO vending machines, restaurants and coffee shops will continue to sell water, fizzy water, and unflavoured milks with different fat contents, teas and coffees, and beverages with non-sugar sweeteners (such as diet and zero calorie drinks). Sugar packets for use with tea and coffee will continue to be served.

These actions are getting plenty of attention.

The Guardian pointed out that:

Battle lines are being drawn in Colombia, where a consumer movement is pressing the case for a sugary drinks tax and the industry is fighting back…Last month, the Asociación Educar Consumidores – the consumer organisation which, like its Mexican equivalent, has backing from Bloomberg Philanthropies in the US – produced an educational video to be broadcast on television, warning that drinking too many sugary drinks can lead to diabetes and other diseases.

But after a complaint from Postobón, the Colombian beverage giant, the government’s regulatory agency charged with consumer protection banned any showing of the video on TV, saying it was inaccurate and could confuse the public.

Michael Bloomberg, now a global ambassador for WHO issued a statement.

A growing number of cities and countries – including Mexico – are showing that taxes on sugary drinks are effective at driving down consumption. The World Health Organization report released today can help these effective policies spread to more places around the world, and that will help save many lives.

The International Council of Beverages Associations (ICBA) issued a statement:

ICBA is disappointed that this technical committee’s report advocates the discriminatory taxation solely of certain beverages as a ‘solution’ to the very real and complex challenge of obesity. We strongly disagree with the committee’s recommendation to tax beverages, as it is an unproven idea that has not been shown to improve public health based on global experiences to date.

Healthy Food America says the soda industry has spent $30 million to fight soda taxes, just this year.

WHO has just given its blessing to soda taxes.  Will countries respond?  How much more is the soda industry willing to spend to stop taxes?

Stay tuned.

Other accounts:

• Time Magazine
• Reuters
• NPR
• Los Angeles Times
• Christian Science Monitor
• BBC

My book, Soda Politics, came out not quite a year ago but so much has happened since then that it’s been hard to keep up with everything that’s happening in campaigns to discourage consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Fortunately, Healthy Food America’s Casey Hinds puts out a daily roundup of sugar and soda news (you can sign up for it and HFA’s other materials here).

A few recent items of particular interest:

USA Today’s editorial, “soda taxes fall flat“

More effective ways already are being used to change people’s diets. The best use of government authority is to empower people with the information they need to make healthier choices.

The editorial comes with a poll, still up.  You can vote on it here.  At this moment only 183 votes have come in, 51% strongly in favor of the editorial opinion.

Jim Krieger of Healthy Food America did a counterpoint

The time has come to tax sugary drinks like we tax tobacco. The analogy is powerful: As with tobacco, rock-solid evidence shows habitual use harms health. Sugary drinks are a prime culprit in rampant health problems — diabetes, obesity, and heart, dental and liver disease – that cut lives short and drive up health care costs.  Tobacco taxes have reduced smoking, while raising money to make lives better. Taxing sugary drinks would do the same

This too has a poll on which you can still vote.  Only 92 votes have come in, and only 38% strongly agree.

Americans don’t like taxes.  Even so, either this issue doesn’t generate much interest or it’s just August and too hot to think about such things.

The beverage industry spent $10.6 million to oppose Philadelphia’s soda tax initiative

The soft drink industry does not like taxes and seems willing to put fortunes into opposing them.

The Philadelphia City Council passed the tax anyway.  I keep thinking of all the good things nearly $11 million could do for public health.

Melbourne’s The Alfred Hospital reduces sugary drink consumption

The hospital did an experiment to see if they could shift the mix of drinks purchased from sugary to less sugary.  They did this by increasing the price of sugary drinks and hiding them under counters.  Sales of sugar-sweetened beverages sales fell by 36,500 drinks in a year.

I don’t get it.  Why not just stop selling them altogether?

That’s it for this August Monday.  Stay cool.  More to come.

Addition, August 23

A reader from New Zealand writes to say that “all of its hospitals no longer sell sugary sodas and some are also beginning to remove juice and artificially sweetened beverages due to their acidic nature and detrimental impact on oral health.”

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mike Newall says the beverage industry is spending a lot of money (“flowing like a Big Gulp”) to defeat the City Council’s soda tax initiative—$2.6 million so far (but see footnote below).

Here’s the catch – this time around, the beverage barons only have to win over City Council. There are 17 Council members, so that comes out to about $152,000 in ad dollars each.

Philadelphia is a battleground Big Soda cannot afford to lose.

The soda industry spent more than $10 million to fight soda tax measures in San Francisco (the industry succeeded) and in Berkeley (the industry lost—76% of voters were for the tax).

But what I really want to know is how much the soda industry spent to defeat Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to cap the sizes of sugary beverages at 16 ounces.  I live in New York City and here’s what I saw the industry do or heard about (much of this is documented in my book, Soda Politics, and in former NYC Health Commissioner Tom Farley’s Saving Gotham; Farley is now health commissioner in Philadelphia):

• Three full-page ads in the New York Times
• Signs on Coke and Pepsi delivery trucks
• A personal mailing to my home
• Tee shirts: “I picked out my beverage all by myself”
• People collecting signatures on petitions against the proposal (they said they were paid $30/hour)
• Airplane banners
• Movie trailers
• Video ads
• Meetings with city officials
• Legal challenges—briefs, court appearances

This was not an election so the soda industry did not have to disclose how much it spent.  But I sure would like to know.

Footnote: Jim O’Hara of Center for Science in the Public Interest reminds me that he wrote a report last year about the amount of money spent by the soda industry to fight public health measures.  You can find it here.  By his count, the industry spent ~$15 million just in New York between 2010 and 2015, but I’m guessing this doesn’t count the soda cap legal fees.

Watch the Ecology Center’s video: Berkeley vs. Big Soda, and learn how Berkeley voters won a soda tax.

Yes you can do this at home.  Do it in your town!

It’s been a tough month for the soda industry.

• Yesterday, members of Mexico’s Nutritional Health Alliance held a press conference to complain that a Coca-Cola Christmas television ad violated the human rights of the indigenous people of the Mixe community of Totontepec.
  

  The ad, released by Coca-Cola in late November on social media as part of its “OpenYourHeart” Christmas advertising campaign shows young people who are outsiders to the Mixe indigenous community arriving to build a Christmas tree of wood and Coca-Cola bottle caps, distributing Coca-Cola to young people from the community and transmitting the message “Stay United” in the Mixe language.

  Coca-Cola removed the ad from its social media channels, but you can watch a version produced by the Alliance in which Mixe youth comment on the ad. The Alliance also has produced a translation.

Al Jazeera produced a video analysis.

• On November 6, the New York Times reported that the University of Colorado was returning a million dollar grant that had paid for the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), the group funded by Coca-Cola that said you didn’t need to worry about what you ate as long as you were active.
• On November 24, AP reporter Candice Choi published e-mails between the U. Colorado scientist behind the GEBN.  These revealed that “Coke helped pick the group’s leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested articles and videos for its website.”
• Coca-Cola’s chief scientist, Rhona Applebaum, immediately resigned.
• On November 29, Helena Bottemiller Evich wrote in Politico how health advocates are running endless campaigns for so taxes, and that these will soon be coming to a polling place near you.
• On November 30, the UK’s Commons Health Committee called for a 20% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.
• On December 1, the GEBN closed shop as a result of loss of funding.
• This week’s issue of The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology contains an opinion piece by U North Carolina professor Barry Popkin and Corinna Hawkes of City University London arguing that the world is eating too much sugar and that changes in policy are needed to encourage reduced consumption of sugary drinks.  According to Politico Morning Agriculture, the American Beverage Association (ABA) is most unhappy about the piece.  It claims that the prevalence of obesity and diabetes are rising but soft drink sales are falling in the U.S., saying “This proves that beverages are not driving these epidemics.”  [Comment: as I discuss in Soda Politics, only half the population drinks sugary beverages meaning that those who do drink them drink a lot.  Also, diabetes rates are falling in the U.S.]
• The ABA won a battle in San Francisco, but is surely losing the public relations war.  It sued the city over a Board of Supervisors ban on ads for sugary drinks on city property and requiring warning labels on all billboards and other surfaces within the city.  The ABA argued that both laws violate the First Amendment.  You might think this argument would get thrown out of court immediately, but you would be wrong, as the Supreme Court is becoming more hostile to such laws.  If you want to hear how the Board of Supervisors reacted to this, click here for the meeting transcript. (thanks to Politico Morning Agriculture for this item too and to Michele Simon for clarifying the legal issues).

I keep getting asked “why pick on sodas?”  The answer: they are an easy target, low-hanging fruit in public health terms.  They contain sugars but nothing else of redeeming nutritional value, are strongly associated with diets that raise the risk of obesity and its consequences, and are heavily marketed as what you need to be happy.  The industry is fighting hard and on many fronts to maintain sales.  Advocates are keeping its lawyers and lobbyists busy.

All this was just in the last month.  Expect more to come.