First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows
Source: The Guardian
First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows
Tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Berkeley, California
has brought soft drink consumption down - and may have
increased water sales
Sarah Boseley Health editor
Tuesday 18 April 2017 19.00 BST
The first sugar tax to be introduced on soft drinks in the United States to fight obesity has cut sales by nearly 10% and apparently increased the numbers of people buying water instead, a study has shown.
Berkeley, California, introduced a substantial tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on 1 March 2015. At the rate of 10% – or one penny per fluid ounce – it adds 12 cents to a 12 ounce can of soda priced at $1, or 68 cents to a two litre bottle costing just over $2 before the tax.
Experts hope that sugar taxes will hike the prices of unhealthy drinks and reduce the number of people who consume large quantities of them. Sugar-sweetened drinks are known to be a significant contributor to obesity, particularly in children and young people.
But taxes have only been introduced after battles with the industry. The latest tax to be introduced – in Philadelphia, in January, where unlike Berkeley incomes are low and obesity rates high – is still being challenged in the courts.
Berkeley is unlike most cities in America, with far higher levels of wealth and education and low consumption of colas and other sugary drinks. Yet Barry Popkin of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and Lynn Silver from the Public Health Institute found that, even there, the tax had changed people’s behaviour.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/18/first-us-sugar-tax-sees-soft-drink-sales-fall-by-almost-10-study-shows
= new reply since forum marked as read
