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Should We Tax Soda to Combat Obesity?

Adrian Andronic

Origins of American Obesity

Professor Fowler and Professor McDonough

February 22, 2011

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Obesity has become a major problem in the United States, as over thirty percent of the

population is obese. Many ideas have been offered to remedy the situation, a popular one among

them a federal tax on soda, mainly sodas sweetened with sugar. Proponents of the tax, such as

Thomas Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention state that the tax

would reduce consumption of soft drinks while simultaneously increasing revenue for the

government (Koch, 2009). Those against the tax, chief among them the soda companies

themselves, argue that it would be ineffective in combating obesity, citing personal rights and

overreach of government as serious concerns. Despite the predicted decrease in obesity resulting

from taxing soda, it would not be effective in doing so for two main reasons. First, while there

might be a slight decrease in consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, alternatives that would

escape the tax are not much healthier than sodas. Second, a tax on soda would create problems

economically, which in turn would maintain the rate of obesity, if not increase it further.

By taxing soda, proponents of the idea predict that people would not buy as much of it,

and instead turn to what are seen as healthier alternatives. They believe that in turn the

prevalence of obesity would decline. However, this is not the case, for several reasons.

First, the effectiveness of the tax in reducing obesity would be minimal because there is a

loophole in the tax proposal; diet drinks would be unaffected by the tax. Due to the increased

price of regular sodas, higher consumption of diet drinks could be expected. While diet sodas are

thought of as being healthier than regular sodas, there is evidence that diet sodas are linked to

higher rates of obesity. Diet sodas have not been shown to directly cause obesity, but the fact that

they are somewhat healthier instills the idea that people can eat whatever they want if their sodas

are diet. As Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical

Center, states, "People often mistake diet drinks for diets. . . You can't go into a fast food
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restaurant and say, 'It's OK because I had diet soda.'" Because soft drinks are such a big

percentage of daily intake among obese people, having a diet soda is seen as having nothing at

all, and people conclude that as a result, they can eat more. If switching to diet drinks is the only

thing one does, the plan will fail and he will not lose weight. Furthermore, diet drinks have been

shown to possibly cause a reaction in the body which stimulates appetite. Sharon Fowler, health

expert at the University of Texas Science Center, reports, "If one drinks something that tastes

like it has a lot of calories, but the calories are not actually there, the body is alerted to the

possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised" (DeNoon

2005). This idea comes from a 1988 study in which rats were given either a saccharin solution or

water to drink. The rats given the saccharin solution ate 10-15 percent more food than those

given only water. If more people buy diet drinks than they did previously, they could end up

eating more than before (Tordoff 1988). Since diet drinks give people both a psychological and a

physical craving to eat more, obesity will remain at the same level if not increase.

A second reason obesity will not decrease significantly as a result of a soda tax is the fact

that even if people are driven to buy diet sodas, the fact remains that when companies lower the

sugar content of their drinks, they play with the fat and salt content. Health psychologist Daniel

Stettner, PhD, says that "when manufacturers lower the sugar content in foods, they typically

increase the fat or the salt content to compensate for any change in how it tastes or feels in the

mouth. For example, sugar-free ice creams can be made higher in fat content" (Sugar 2004).

Therefore some diet drinks can still be calorie dense.

Third, a soda tax does not necessarily mean that a shift in consumption toward healthier

beverages would even occur. In economics, there is a concept called price elasticity. There is a

kind of elasticity called "own-elasticity," which tracks changes in the pattern of consumption of a
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product in response to its own change in price. Also, there is "cross-elasticity," which tracks

consumption of a product in response to changes in price of another product. In the case of

sodas, there is evidence that a change in price will somewhat decrease consumption of sodas, but

there is no evidence that a change in price of sodas will affect consumption of healthier drink

(Chaufman 2009). Furthermore, even if there were cross elasticity between sodas and supposedly

healthier drinks, some of the drinks that would escape the tax, such as smoothies, could still have

as many calories as a sugar sweetened soda.

While the idea that a tax on sodas would increase consumption of healthier drinks may

seem logical, unfortunately that is not the case. Furthermore, a tax on soda would create

economical problems.

One of the economical problems with a tax on soda is that the government would have a

large amount of money to do whatever it wants with. At that point, the consumer would have no

say in choosing on what to spend it. An example of this is the Arkansas soft drink tax passed in

1992. The money was supposed to go into the state's Medicaid program, but when there was an

attempt to repeal the tax, taxpayers discovered policymakers were diverting the revenue to the

general fund (Williams 2009). The money collected from a tax on soda could go toward

decreasing obesity, but it would be spent at the government's discretion, and would not

necessarily help fight obesity.

There is an even larger problem, however; the soda tax would disproportionately affect

the poor. The Chicago Federal Reserve Bank observed that "sugar sweetened beverages

represent a larger share of the spending of the poor than is true for the overall population" (Soda

2011). Thus, states looking for additional revenue to fund their budgets and service their debts
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would be taking more money from the poor. Regardless of the potential health benefits of a soda

tax, the

very people that politicians claim to be helping would be the financial target of a higher soda tax.

As a result, poor people would be forced to search for cheaper drinks, which often are even more

sweetened than the big brand name items. As a result, obesity would increase further among the

poor, the very people the tax would try to help.

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References

Koch, W. (2009, August 17). Soda Makers: Don't Tax Our Soft Drinks [Electronic Version].
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DeNoon, Daniel J. (2005). Drink More Soda, Gain More Weight?

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Tordoff, Michael G. (1988). How Do Non-Nutritive Sweeteners Increase Food Intake?



 5-11. Retrieved February 17, 2011 from
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Sugar Substitutes May Distort the Body's Natural Calorie Counter. (2004).
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sweeteners-damage-diet-efforts

Chaufman, C., Hong, G.H., & Fox, P. (2009). Taxing "Sin Foods" - Obesity Prevention and
Public Health Policy. 



361. Retrieved February
18, 2011, from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMopv0909847

Williams, R., & Christ, K. (2009). Soft Drinks Tax an Inefficient, Ineffective Way to Fight
Obesity. 
 !
" Retrieved February 17, 2011 from
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/25611/Soft_Drinks_Tax_an_Inefficient_Ineff
ective_Way_to_Fight_Obesity.html

Soda Taxes Disproportionately Affect Poor: Chicago Fed. (2011, February 7). #$
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