By pH health
care professionals
Do you love
soda? Nearing possible addiction? This is nothing to be ashamed of, and
the World Health Organization feels your
pain and wants to help. Sugar-sweetened beverages are a significant contributor
to the worldwide rise in obesity and diabetes, WHO said. In fact, obesity has
at least doubled since 2014, and diabetes has risen to nearly 10 percent of the
worldwide population.
In an effort to
reduce the problem, WHO is suggesting countries implement a new tax to deter
people from buying sugary drinks, and to ultimately prevent associated diseases
and health care costs. In its October report, WHO recommended a tax of around
20-50 percent on beverages sweetened with sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup or
fruit juice concentrates. This would affect the prices of sodas, energy drinks,
sports drinks, iced teas, lemonade and fruit drinks.
Some cities in
the United States have already moved in this direction. Philadelphia, for
example, passed a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened
beverages at 1.5 cents per ounce to go into effect January 1, 2017. The
original measure suggested 3 cents per ounce, which was studied by Harvard researchersfrom the
Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study (CHOICES). The benefits
they found included:
- 36,000 cases of obesity prevented over a
ten-year period.
- 2,280 cases of diabetes prevented over a
one-year period once the tax reached its full effect.
- $200 million saved in health care costs
over a ten-year period.
The tax would be
on beverage distributors, which would likely lead to a price increase around 20
cents per 12-ounce can or $1 per two-liter bottle. The city expects the tax
will bring in at least $91 million in revenue to help fund pre-K expansion,
community schools and parks and recreation centers.
CHOICES also
took it a step further to examine the possible results in other communities,
including Albany, Oakland and San Francisco, CA (one cent per ounce tax), as
well as Boulder, CO (two cents per ounce tax). They found that such measures
would “prevent cases of childhood and adult obesity, prevent new cases of
diabetes, increase healthy life years, and save more in future health care
costs than it would cost to implement.”
So WHO may be
onto something with its proposal! The question now is what the consumer would
think. Would you support a tax on sweetened beverages?
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Enjoy Your
Healthy Life!
