Soda Taxes Anna Gorman Analysis

More than 35% of American adults are obese and as a consequence, are at increased risks for health issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes ("Overweight & Obesity"). The U.S. taxpayer is supplementing much of the cost to treat obesity related health issues through public health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ("Economic Costs"). A positive externality will occur in the form of decreased health care expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. government should impose an excise tax on soda and other beverages that contain sugar. Consumers who drink excess sugary beverages impose a negative internality on their health; as well as imposing a negative externality on the American

Did you know that of 39,000 people surveyed that drink sugary drinks 26% of those people are also obese. Also a full 42% of the annual $142 billion in health care costs attributable to obesity. One pro of taxing sugary drinks is it will raise money. Another pro would be deterring customers from buying so many sugary drinks and maybe instead buy something healthy. Some people say that taxing sugary drinks would only make customers buy sugary drinks different places so the tax is lower. Although people would buy them other places to get a lower price it would still raise money. These are reasons why sugary drinks should be taxed.

Soda companies “dramatically announced that they would aim to cut the number of sugary drinks calories by twenty percent over the next ten years by reducing the portion size and trying to sell more zero-calorie and low calorie options.” By reducing the portion size, Americans could be drinking more cans, and possibly drinking more ounces than they were originally. As for the zero-calorie and low calorie options, the drinks are considered by doctors to be worst than the original because they contain artificial sweeteners that are not ‘natural sugars’, but chemically made sugars that puts an individual at greater risk of being morbidly obese by slowing their metabolisms, and is also known to elevate their blood pressure. Mexico’s soda consumption and obesity rate was once worst than the United States a few years ago, Mexico then established “a significant tax on soda and junk food.. Soda consumption in Mexico fell by a couple of percent points almost immediately.. there was almost as large increase in the sale of bottled water (not taxed).” Mexico had went ahead with its initiative to stop their nation’s problem, as for the United States, soda has become a major part of our diets. I believe that is restricting us from progressing from this aggravated problem.

I agree completely with this blog post. Usually, I would not view an inaccessibility to food to be a positive thing. In this case, the more obstacles individuals had to go through for soda, the less it was bought. I experienced something similar to a soda tax myself. Like all college students, I am on a budget, so I try to be generally mindful of how much I spend and

In 2010 alone sugary- drink consumption killed almost 200,000 people. Despite it being so detrimental to health, Soda is the most popular beverage in the US and makes up almost thirty percent of all beverages consumed annually. The average person drinks over six thousand ounces of soda each year Soda consumption has been directly linked to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity. It is time for us to take action and place a “junk food” tax on soft drinks to discourage people from purchasing them. . Some people believe that a soda ban would limit personal freedom, which they believe is essential in a democracy, and past proposals was rejected because of this. However, soda is taking many lives, and it is time for us to take action; we need to make our world a happier, healthier place.

Drinking sugary drinks is like a seed and grows overtime in your body until the tree tries to burst from your body. Mayor Bloomberg of New York tried to enforce the soda ban to lower obesity rates but there were many loopholes in his plan. The citizens of New York are able to pick whatever unhealthy food or “sugary drinks,” they want, regardless of the ban. The citizens can refill their drinks or order more than one. Additionally, bigger drinks with a certain amount of sugar or milk are exempt from the ban. With these loopholes, citizens will still be drinking unhealthy drinks; the ban is unnecessary. Many people

Consumers pay for ingredients and the nutrients inside them. Therefore, an apple, which helps you stay full longer, and contains vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fibers, would costs more, because it contains more. Even though this pricing is logical, only banning soda is not going to make a difference, because people will just replace the sugary content with something more unhealthy. Honestly, if obesity is such an important issue, and is risking the lives of many, causing people to be unhealthy, the government should be finding new ways to lessen the price of healthy foods and products in order to increase a healthy lifestyle. Instead of supporting the idea of lessening the amount of soda able to be consumed, more pressing matters should be focused upon. Such as, lowering the cost of healthy foods and services. People will be more willing change to a healthier lifestyle, if this lifestyle is an obtainable goal. Unemployment is high, and people barely make enough to provide a roof over their heads. It makes sense that individuals would purchase products that are less in price, which happens to be products that are unhealthy for

This policy memo will address why the policy maker should impose a sugar beverage excise tax on the American Beverage Association's member corporations. More than 35% of American adults are obese and as a consequence, are at increased risks for health issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes ("Overweight & Obesity"). The U.S. taxpayer is supplementing much of the cost to treat obesity related health issues through public health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ("Economic Costs"). A positive externality will occur in the form of decreased health care expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. Government should impose an excise tax on soda and other beverages that contain sugar.

Many american adult civilians are obese, the cdc states that about 34.9% or 78.6 million adults in america are obese and over 17% or 12.7 million kids from ages 2-19 are obese. Many of the causes is the overconsumption of soda. The issue at hand is that there are many obese people buying large amounts of soda in the United States. Although i don’t think soda should not be banned for consumption and it’s a freedom of choice of what people want to eat; however, the amount of soda an individual buys should buy should be regulated because, lowers the risk diabetes, lowers the risks of obesity, lowers the risks of health problems later on in life.

The first question in Kass’s formulaic approach to the ethics of public health is “What are the public health goals of this program?” (Kass, 1777) By nature, the public health goal of any program is to essentially promote the overall health of a population through an organized and communal effort. In the case of the soda tax, the ultimate public health goal is simply to reduce the amount of morbidity & mortality and improve the well being of society. This begins by tackling the obesity problem, which is directly linked to morbidity & mortality. According to Brownell, “for each extra can or glass of sugared beverage consumed per day, the likelihood of a child’s becoming obese increases by 60%” (Brownell et al., 1599). It can be inferred that drinking soda is linked to obesity rates, but why should obesity rates matter? According to Sturm, “a higher BMI…is associated with increased mortality and increased risk for coronary heart disease, osteoarthritis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and certain types of cancer. Even modest weight reductions can have substantial lifetime health benefits” (Sturm, 245). Obviously if someone is morbidly obese, he or she is at extreme risk for a myriad of

Firstly, I believe that introducing a soda tax would create further socioeconomic inequalities. Assume, for the sake of argument, that introducing a soda tax would not create further socioeconomic inequalities. However, we already know that obesity is more prevalent among the more unprivileged groups of society. Thus, imposing this kind of tax would be taking a proportionally greater amount from those on lower incomes. This would result in greater socioeconomic disparities between the rich and the poor. From this contradiction, we can see that it is not the case that introducing a soda tax would not create further socioeconomic inequalities.

It seems that over the last 10 years, there has been campaigns that promote different studies showing soft beverages or carbonated beverages are unhealthy and cause a lot of problems to individuals. Cities, in order to tackle public health, especially childhood obesity, have made efforts of to ban or tax carbonated beverages. Although some may not have been successful, such as New York City or Philadelphia, it shows the public that soda is not a healthy product. In a recent article by Sanger-Katz, she explains that over the last 20 years, the sales

Taxation will certainly incite healthier eating habits. It can be very difficult to change our current eating habits, even when they are harmful; however, increased prices can help. Since such purchases will cost more, while providing less nutritional value, some families may decide to choose healthier, and more affordable options. Therefore, taxation on sugary products may have a lasting impact on the public's eating

“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.

Considering that soft drinks are one of the most popular drinks to a lot of people all around the world, unfortunately, a lot of them love to drink it almost every day and may not live without it. Soda becomes addictive, preventing one from drinking what the body needs the most which is water. In the market, there is a infinite amount of choices with multiple varieties of flavors, different tastes, ranges from classic soda to diet soda. However, consumers do not recognize clearly the negative effect of soft drinks that have a high chance of eroding their health away. Some of these examples include dental erosion, energy intake, obesity and other health issues. Nowadays, people live a healthy life to avoid health problems, so taxes on soft