Public Health in Oregon - Join The Conversation

I feel very strongly about having a soda pop tax and a tax on junk food.  We should have it because it will stop obesity and fund our institutes of health. Eventhough the low income people will have more of the burden of the tax because they are the ones buying the junk food and buying the pop, they are the ones using the governments institutes of health in which the tax money will be going to. So they are actually funding their health program and helping themselves with in the situation.

There’s a lot to be said for a modest, resonable taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Besides the previously stated benefits of a tax relating to the American obesity epidemic as well as diabetes and other health problems, I see a bigger issue being address by this possible taxation: a shift in the American culture of food. If a bill leading to a soda tax were passed, it would be a major statement about American priorities and the goals we seek to attain as a democratic whole.

As is the case with many public health initiatives, prevention is the key.  The problem with this is that it costs more up front.  In the case of a soda or sugar-sweetened beverage tax, it would cost soda consumers more up front for (hopefully) better health outcomes later on.  I agree that the lower SES members of our population will feel this pressure the most, yet the offset decreased health care costs later on should still theoretically hold true.  This raises the issue, however, that sugar-sweetened beverages are not the only items consumed by members of lower SES that are related to greater obesity, diabetes, and heart disease risks.  I believe cigarette and processed/fast food consumption is also higher in this group.  However, I don’t see feasibility in passing one piece of legislation to target the sources of all three at once, so maybe a step-wise approach (each targeted separately) is a more likely way to frame the battle.

As for the tax itself, evidence-based practice should be the goal.  Statistics have shown that as price goes up, cigarette consumption goes down.  If this is the closest and most relevant evidence available at this early stage, then I think a tax is a reasonable attempt to make, especially if decreased consumption is the goal.

Taking on soda is like taking on cigarettes.  It will be a long and hard fought battle and in the end neither side will be happy.  It has become a staple in American culture and shows no sign of letting up.

Personally I don’t drink soda.  My parents didn’t keep it in the house so whenever I drink it I can only finish about a half a can before I feel sick.  My wife however is completely addicted to it.  She has tried several times to “get off of it” but has had significant difficulties.

I would like to see sweetened beverages taxed as a group and not individualize soda because it is the large amount of sugar that is in ENTIRE American diet that is the problem.  Soda represents a significant part of it, but I know many people that don’t drink soda and have a difficult time keeping the weight off.

I agree that the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is one of the significant contributing factors to the obesity epidemic in America. However, I do not see the discintion between sugar-sweetened beverages and many other food products that have asbolutely no nutritional value.  If the movement is against high fructose corn syrup, let it be against all high fructose corn syrup, not just sweetened beverages.

I also agree with several commentors below that the focus should be redirected on the outdated and harmful farm subsidies, rather than the introduction of a tax.  To raise the price on goods that are falsely underpriced to begin with seems counter-productive.  What is the argument against lowering/removing the initial subsidy to create the same market price as adding a tax?

People may argue that “food” should not be taxed, but soda is not food, it has no nutritional value, instead it has detrimental health effects.  Again, people may argue that health is an individual choice, but unfortunately the government subsidizes a great deal of health care, so the reality is that the government reserves the right to levy a tax on a product that directly effects health.  When individuals no longer bear the full burden of their consumption choices, it becomes a public issue. 
I say TAX THE HECK OUT OF IT!!! 
I won’t claim to be some purist who never drinks soda, but when I do I will gladly pay more in the name of ensuring decreased consumption among the general population.
This tax will not be a solution, but it will certainly be a step in the right direction.

I think we need to make a policy change in order to make a change in the health of Americans. Taxing pop/soda is a great idea, even though I think people may respond harshly. If people cannot manage their own health, maybe the government (state or national) should step in.

A tax on soft drinks would reduce consumption by reducing demand and increasing education on better nutrition (presumably the tax money would go towards education).

I think substantial effort should be placed on educating the youth about the health detriments of soft drinks. Personally, I did not realize the potentially tremendous impact soda has on diet until I was already a hooked consumer. 

Until awareness efforts are focused on children, nutritional education with regard to soft drinks will be an exercise in remediation instead of a prevention.

I think that implementing a soft drink tax would be an ideal way to cut consumption of soft drinks and to provide much needed revenue for public health programs.

People are not informed enough about the dangers of soft drinks and how much they can negatively affect your health.

With obesity an ever growing issue, something needs to be done about the soft drink issue now. I think that putting a tax on soft drinks is an excellent way to start.

I strongly agree that sugar sweetened beverages should be taxed at some level. They are not a food that people need to survive, if people do not like the increase in price, STOP drinking so much soda! I think the ads coming out arguing this tax will hurt low income people is crazy. The first reason being the income generated from the tax is going back to help low income people make healthier decisions and the second being soda intake by low income people should be looked at as a luxury not a necessity.

Even if the tax did not cut down on sugar sweetened beverages, the money generated from the tax could still help public health issues in our state to reduce obesity in both indirect and direct ways.

Health care needs to be looked at as a form of national security in our country. By supporting this bill we are encouraging the community to live healthier lives.

Soft drinks like soda can be considered as food, but they are unnecessary food and they are unhealthy. These products are a waste of energy and cause huge health problem not only to individual, but also to the public. That is why when you purchase them, you need pay extra money to compensate –that is called tax.

Policy makers have the responsibility to protect public’s health. Yes, everyone has the freedom to choose whatever they like to eat and drink, but at the same time, policy makers can manipulate the “environment” to adjust people’s behaviors. Evidence shows that changing policy is the most powerful weapon to shape people’s behaviors. Making policy is not telling people what to do or not to do, but help people make better choice.

Tax soda also gives the market an opportunity to create healthier drinks. For example, Chinese and Japanese drink a lot of tea, and they do not have obesity problem. Some one may argue that it is a tradition or culture things. Yes, it may take decades to adjust our “fatty” cultures, but if we start it today, we are on the way to change.

The most important goal of taxing soft drink is to reduce the consumption. So I do not mind the money from tax go somewhere else.

I’m responding to the post by “Five Sons” that says, “they actually added soda and energy drink machines to the high school my son attends…”  Are you aware that Oregon passed one of the strongest school nutrition standards laws in the nation in 2007 (HB2650)?  These nutrition standards allow sale of only lowfat milk, 100% fruit juice and water in elementary and middle schools.  In addition, at the high school level they can sell diet soda and sports drinks like Gatorade/Powerade.  So, if there is any soda with sugar or other non-100% fuit drinks with the exception of the “sports drinks and diet sodas” that I mentioned, they need to be removed. 

The advocates who worked to have this law passed, were not pleased with the compromise that had to be made with the beverage companies for “diet/sports drinks” being included as saleable in high schools, but believed getting them out of middle schools and no sweetened soda etc. in high schools was an important first step.  If this law is being broken, please go to our website:  http://www.communityhealthpartnership.org and go to “contact us.”  We don’t have funding to monitor HB2650’s implementation, but will follow up on a case by case basis as reported to us.

Taxing sugared beverages, while likely efficacious, is a downstream approach that fails to take into account why sweetened beverages are so inexpensive and therefore so ubiquitous.  Government subsidies have resulted in the lowering of prices over the years of key products such as sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, while the price of produce has steadily risen.  Consumers are confronted with a paradox at the supermarket: it is less expensive to buy a highly processed product than the unprocessed food it actually came from.  It is less expensive to by corn syrup than it is to buy ears of corn, and less expensive to buy soybean oil than it is to buy whole soybeans.  These government subsidies mask the true cost of these foods, and are the real culprit behind the shift in this country toward high-sugar food of dubious nutritional value.

Perhaps we should refocus our attention on lobbying for more appropriate government subsidies.  Fresh fruits and vegetables, the items most lacking in the standard American diet, receive no subsidies.  Wouldn’t our efforts as public health professionals be best spent on working to make fresh produce the least expensive item at the supermarket?  It is counterintuitive that organic, locally grown produce should cost more than produce that is grown under ecologically deleterious circumstances and then trucked 2,000 miles from its place of origin.  We should lobby for subsidies on products with a low “true cost”: cost to the environment, and cost to our health.

The poor are most afflicted by diet-related diseases.  Taxing sugared beverages, while likely resulting in reduced consumption by those in poverty, mirrors the food industry’s strategy of emphasizing personal over collective responsibility.  Rather than attempting to prevent those in poverty from making a choice they feel forced to make, we should work to offer more viable choices to those who are struggling.  Redistributing government subsidies might one day eradicate the “supermarket paradox”, and we might be confronted with locally grown, organic produce being the most cost-effective option, with fresh fruit and vegetable juices becoming the most popular beverages among the poor.  It is undeniable that this change would have a significant impact on the health and well-being of the most vulnerable among us - a much greater impact than charging a few extra cents for a bottle of soda.

This is a good idea (decreasing soda consumption) that focuses on the wrong approach (taxing people for buying it). To artificially increase the price of something we are already artificially reducing the price of, through our farm subsidies for corn crops, is ridiculous. Instead of paying twice for the low cost of soda, why not tax soda companies for purchasing the sugar/corn syrup, or better yet, increase cost of all these nutritionally worthless foods by decreasing the corn subsidies?

I doubt that a soda tax will even be effective. If 95 percent of the consumer cost of soda is pure profit, wouldn’t soda companies just reduce their prices to account for the increased price? They have a lot of room to work with.

This tax may have the opposite of the desired effect. It will increase the proportion of food budgets spent on soda for those that maintain their rate of consumption, further decreasing the possibility that people will buy fresh fruits and vegetables. This would disproportionately effect low SES populations.

Further, a soda tax wastes valuable political capital that public health holds. Pushing a national tax before any state or local taxes have an opportunity to demonstrate their efficacy is a bad idea. If we were to take this step, we should at least have concrete evidence. If this fails, then how do we come back next time and get the public in line?

These are just the beginning of the problems associated with this. It makes a great public health initiative, cigarette taxes, into a terrible trend. What are we going to do, increase the tax on every unhealthy behavior until only the rich can be unhealthy? We need to stop this waste and focus on issues that will really make a meaningful impact and NOT blame the victim.

This is a very controversial topic that deserves careful exploration. To begin, it is well aware to the readers of this conversation that soda contributes to obesity, diabetes and overall poor health. We know this because we are informed, and we have the resources to educate ourselves and individuals in our social networks of this knowledge.  We are, to term ourselves, information seekers - individuals who have access to reputable information, routine medical care, and overall access. Technology, for example, is a key element to our access of information, influencing our decision to offer our children soda, or not. 

According to the CDC, there has been a dramatic increase of individuals using the internet for health seeking information.  This increase correlates to economic status, as internet access costs. Individuals of lower SES have limited access to the similar information of individuals with higher SES. I raise this point to bring attention to the populace in which dominant consumption of soda is seen: communities of lower socioeconomic status.

Individuals living in poverty tend to receive federal assistance for food, and average a gross monthly income of approximately $673 per household (http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/faqs.htm#9) With such a limited budget, weighing the expense of something high in calorie and cheap, compared with something low in calorie, nutritious and expensive - one must ponder, which to choose? Keep in mind, this is not prefer, but choose for survival?

I am not stating that I agree or disagree with the tax on sugared beverages, however I do believe that all variables must be evaluated and supported. Studies show that this tax can improve overall health, reduce medical expenses, and increase revenue to apply towards health care.  It will not make living on a limited budget more affordable, and risks further disenfranchising lower income communities who do not have the information on the health benefits of eliminating soda.

I would like to propose an evaluation at the taxation of corporations manufacturing sugared beverages, such as coffee companies (Starbucks), and soda (Pepsi and Coke).  In addition, media campaigns targeting children and adolescents can address the health benefits of a reduction in consumption of sugared beverages, the primary audience for Coke and Pepsi. 
Combating obesity has become an uphill battle in America. An enforcement tax, such as soda tax, may significantly assist in combating increasing obesity rates in children. Other avenues, however, should also be addressed prior to government enforcement.

If they tax alcohol and cigarettes, why not soda? 

Besides, a lot of people feed it to innocent children just because it’s cheaper than healthier choices.  Tax it high enough so the healthier choices are cheaper.

I have to say that I don’t give my boys soda and I hated that they actually added soda and energy drink machines to the high school that he attends! and of course let’s remember that it’s cheaper for them to buy soda then it is a V8, or water - I know because that is what my son drinks. 

Soda has absolutely NO NUTRITIONAL value and it destroys teeth, not to leave out the fact that it is completed overloaded with sugar…for those who don’t know this…long ago - sugar was considered a narcotic because of it’s addictive abilities. 

So why do we give this stuff to our kids? 

Why is something can actually give you heart, liver, obesity and oral health problems legal? 

If you think about what sugar in large amounts does to you over a long period of time…its just like alcohol really…there is nothing beneficial about it.

We as parents need to teach our children and do a better job educating them deeply on eating healthy.  I did this with my boys, and they CHOOSE to eat healthy things, and really have no desire to spend their money on candy, or soda or junk and in fact are perfectly happy munching on a banana or an apple rather then a candy bar or a cupcake.

I know that TV influences people heavily, and that goes for children of course…that is why I don’t have TV in my house…it helps, trust me.