While sitting at lunch with a few friends, all of us sipping on various drinks, some sugar laden some not so much, I was listening to the tongues wagging about New York Governor Paterson’s proposal to add additional taxes on the purchase of sugary drinks. I started to analyze this move, trying to come to terms with how I felt about it. My feelings on this are not ambiguous, yet I don’t have my feet planted firmly on the for or against side of this issue.
In defense of the request to add an additional 18 percent sales tax on sugary sodas and fruit drinks containing less than 70 percent natural fruit juice Laura L. Anglin, the state of New York budget director, stated that “one out of every four New Yorkers is obese”. This tax will purportedly raise $400 million a year for health programs, and is expected to decrease the consumption of nutritionally void high calorie soft drinks by 5 percent. That can only be a good thing right? There’s no debating the facts. Obesity is on the incline in this country.Thirty states boast an obesity rate equal to or greater than 25 percent, three states equal to or greater than thirty percent.Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. with 30 percent of Americans classified as obese. Minority and low-socioeconomic-status groups are disproportionately affected by this epidemic, at all ages.
The most verifiable and common cause of weight gain and obesity are consuming more calories than the body needs (sometimes in the form of empty sugar laden high calorie soft drinks), and being sedentary. There are recent studies, however, which suggest the imbalance between calories consumed and calories burned can also be caused by a number of different obesity-related factors, including genetic, hormonal, behavioral, environmental and even cultural. In adding a tax of this kind it is important to remember that obesity is not always simply a behavioral issue. I don’t disagree with the tactic of taxing something unnecessary to provide funds for services which could eliminate or significantly decrease a serious problem, but I can’t see, at least not with any clarity, how soft drinks are causal, and if I were a resident of New York I’d want to know to their plan going forward.
Is the state going to address the issues which affect the obesity rate, the most notorious being economics and education? Are they going to fund and develop a program to keep high carbohydrate starch based meals out of pubic schools and replace them with healthier choices? On another level are they going to implement programs to address the issues which keep those on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder from climbing up the ladder? Is there a plan to provide a top notch public school education ensuring everyone desiring to further their education after high school can do so and by that increasing their income potential making it more likely they will not only understand the concept of good nutrition, but will be able to afford to put it into practice in their own lives?
Is there a plan to start subsidizing broccoli and tomatoes instead of corn?
There is something to be said for taxing nutritionally void sugar laden products, but the tax is a band aid without a real plan. Will a 5 percent decrease in consumption of soda products translate into a decrease in the obesity rates? Theoretically it could, but in a state where the obesity rate has gone from 10 percent in 1990 to equal to or greater than 25 percent in 2007 there needs to be more than a 5 percent decrease in the consumption of sugary soft drinks to justify the “makes us fat tax”.
Published first at Blog Critics.
