Should There Be A Sugar Tax

Sugar addiction is a problem that has been in our society for many years. In today's world this type of addiction is being composed into drinks. Sugary drinks are found everywhere from local stores, to in home refrigerators. Sodas, juices, and energy drinks, all fall under unhealthy remedies to thirst. Sugar addiction can only restrain us from accomplishing healthy goals in life. Sugary drinks can lead to harming one's body. Over the past few years, many cities and states have considered taxing sodas and other sugary beverages. Sugary drinks must be tax due to its unhealthy components and addiction.

Obesity and diabetes are diseases affected by poor diet. These health problems, caused by overdrinking sugary drinks are increasing the health care cost paid. Public funds are used to pay these cost through Medicare and Medicaid. Some people insist that these drinks should carry a higher tax to keep people from consuming and also to help cover medical cost. But these companies have battled hard against this , saying their products are being singled out unfairly.Some people argue that taxing sugary drinks won’t decrease the rate of obesity and even change the consumer behavior. However, studies have shown that increasing the price for sugary drinks have actually reduce purchase and also drop the rates of diabetes and obesity.

Sugar is everywhere in our lives. When you eat, sugar is in the food such as hamburger, sandwiches, pizza, bread, etc. When you drink, sugar is in the beverage like soda, juice, coffee and even milk. Furthermore, sugar exists in snacks such as cookies, cupcakes, biscuits and so on. I cannot list everything with sugar here. Actually, when we eat, we eat sugar. Unfortunately, sugar is now considering a toxic to our bodies. It causes diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart attack and cancer, etc. As sugar threatens the public health, government is considering curb sugar consumption by taxes on sugar; restrictions placed on food production and even age requirements on purchasing sugary foods. For this research project, I decided to pursue the question, Should sugar be regulated? This question deserves to be examined because we need to make some change for life to reduce sugar intake but at the same time it’s controversial that whether the government should intervene and regulate sugar. I wonder how the government will take appropriate measures to regulate sugar as well as improve public health.

In our daily life, we all have tasted sugar probably more than you think. Sugar is something we enjoy without having much concern, in fact this can be problematic. With the amount of sugar we take in, it can affect our health in the future. Therefore, the US government should create strict sugar regulations, in order to prevent future health problems of its citizens. The regulation can hopefully help prevent the increasing rate of diabetes, more risk of liver issues, and reduce people’s sugar addiction. Most people are unaware of these problems and it’s up to the US to make a change in people's health with a strict sugar regulation.

The American diet is based mostly in processed food which contains enormous amount of sugar. The excessive consumption of sugar can cause diseases such as obesity, heart diseases, alzheimer, liver diseases, diabetes and others. One of the problems with the consumption of sugar is that people get sick progressively without the knowledge that it is caused by sugar. In addition, sugar is an addictive food and life without it is almost impossible. As a result, processed foods are cheaper than healthy food. It is hard to avoid processed food when Americans do not have time to cook because of their life style. Americans need to know the way to change their diet and improve their lifestyles. Americans sometimes forget about the amount of sugar that a soda or flavored drink contains. These drinks are tasty, but it will not satisfy thirst. Sugar is equally dangerous and has the same health effects than smoke cigarettes. Consume sugar in excessive amounts per day have a significant effect in Americans ' daily life. Americans should be aware of the diseases caused by their eating habits, therefore; they should be more conscious of what they eat and change their diet.

Based on a 2,000 calorie daily diet, dietitians recommend only consuming 50 grams of sugar daily. A can of Coke takes up more then half of that amount. When interviewing some health care professionals, Kristin Raebinger a registered dietitian, found that the majority of them quickly commented that sugar consumption is a major contributor to obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease (Cited in Worthington, 2016). A lot of health care professionals think that the soda tax is the only way to stop this issue but they also think it may be best to not pass the tax and just lower the amount of sugar in soda (Worthington,

“Soda Taxes: Gaining Steam or Getting Steamrolled?” is an enticing article by Anna Gorman that focuses on the issue of taxing sugary beverages and the effect it will ultimately have on the health of the general population. She mentions that the tax could reduce the rates of obesity and diabetes in the affected areas. She also points out the counter to this claim, that soda taxes may not have any effect on obesity rates at all and may give the government too much power over the consumer choice. Overall, she seems to advocate that soda is an unhealthy beverage and should be cut down among consumers. Soda however, is not the only unhealthy options out there. There is a plethora of products on the shelves of supermarkets and sold at restaurants.

Firstly, taxes on sodas would decrease the consumption of soda. People would think twice before buying a soft drink if there was an increased tax on carbonated beverages. They may choose bottles of water with a cheaper price. When people don’t spend on carbonated beverages, the consumption of soda would decrease. According to a survey of Powell et at., suggested that a 20% increase in price would reduce consumption by 25%. As a result, it would break the link between the consumption of soda and obesity. It also encourages the consumption of healthier beverages, such as water, vegetable drinks, etc. If people consume fewer sodas, in particular, they would have better health conditions as well as lower obesity rate. Therefore, these taxes would decrease the obesity rate in our country.

As public health is a responsibility of the government, food taxation would be an appropriate action to implement. Seeing the need for an increase in additional evidence, this study can provide clinicians motivation to participate in studies and lobbying for food taxation. Also understanding the multiple elements implemented policies affect, including social and economically, reminds this reader of the importance of responsible, researched based policy

The excessive consumption of sugar has a strong correlation with the most of the diseases considered a common cause of death like cancer and heart disease. Furthermore, sugary beverages are one of the biggest sources of sugar consumption in American’s diet. As Humhnergarth, states in her article, “Berkeley's Soda Tax is working and That Could Be a Game Changer”: “Sugary drink consumption is associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay and obesity…” Therefore, tax on sugary drinks will raise the price, which will turn the consumer to a healthier food choice, and in consequence will decrease the consumer’s consumption of

Sugar tax will not help to solve health or budget issues to reduce debt. Sugar has caused many problems such as revenue and health problems. Firstly, sugar drinks has a high cost on the society, and the overconsumption of sugar causes lots of health problems such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, tooth decay and heart diseases “Already we know that the burden of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are greater among population of socioeconomic status “ (Riediger,year, para 14). Sugar is addiction and it mainly affects to people who have low incomes , not because they can’t buy , but they don’t have enough knowledge on how it might affect them back since they have a low literacy even though, dozen of cities and states have launched public

Why do we need to limit the sugar. Added Sugar has an effect where to much sugar can cause heath problems. I support the regulation of sugar if it is part of sugar if it is part of a comprehensive effort to improve the diet of Americans. Sugar carry’s diseases. In The Toxic Truth about Sugar, economic development means that the populations of low- and middle, 80% of deaths attributable to them occur in these countries. may loses the population because of the sugar effect. Due to the effect of the sugar, sugar may give the people disease. The amount of added sugar can cause heath problem or other side effect, so we should watch

It would be irresponsible to say, that I do not want government to regulate. By recognizing the practical realities of given situation, which is that sugar is added in almost everything and is now dedicated to a rise in chronic disorder like Pancreatitis, hypertension, cardiac dilation to name few of them. The article states

Instead of focusing on the food itself and what it contains, people should be more focused on their relationship with eating and how it’s causing obesity. Dr John Menzies, who is a research fellow in Edinburgh University's centre for integrative physiology said, “People try to find rational explanations for being overweight and it is easy to blame food,” which mean that Menzies uses research and expert testimony to prove his point. In the article, “Is Sugar the World’s Most Popular Drug?” by Gary Taubes, Taubes begins his article by talking about the experience of consuming sugar and sweets during childhood and uses it as an example to how sugar is like drugs, addictive.

“Sin” taxes have been proven as a way to curtail known unhealthy behaviors. Soda taxes are most accepted if taxes collected are earmarked for health specific programs (Chaufin et al., 2010). The cons are the consumers are the voters and taxing may equate to loss of votes, taxing may not be equitable to individuals that do not have the disease, and finally, an undue burden may be placed on lower socio-economic demographics as these groups often have limited access to food vendors that primarily sale what would be considered taxed foods. Though these sin taxes are proven to work well with tobacco and alcohol consumption, altering a persons’ diet needs to be more individualized and realistically approached. Lower socio-economic individuals should not feel added burden as a tax; which would be a negative impact (Kuchar et al., 2005). Legality issues are regarded as low, but would require state government support to enact. This would likely not be popularly accepted and have a minimal impact for any increase in tax rate.