This piece is a response to a Huffington Post Column by Michael Jacobson: "Fizzy Math: Tax Soda to Pay for Health Care and Prevention;" May 29, 2009.
The United States has a daunting task before it: funding health care reform. It is a challenge we will meet and one the non-alcoholic beverage industry supports as it will help make our country stronger.
As a valuable part of America's economy, our industry provides good-paying jobs with health care coverage and pensions in communities large and small. Therefore, we will do our part to support the financing of health care reform, as long as a broad-based and equitable approach is the standard, rather than discriminatory taxes. Unfortunately, however, some inside the Beltway are providing counsel that supports simplistic approaches -- such as regressive and discriminatory taxes -- over comprehensive solutions.
As policy-makers seek ways to fund health care reform, we encourage them to seek sound policies, policies that are based on science, economic realities and common sense. After all, our industry agrees that obesity is a serious public health concern in the United States. And there is no question that morbid obesity is strongly linked to the development of other chronic diseases. But we also know -- and scientists agree -- that there is no single cause of obesity and, therefore, a soda tax just won't work.
Importantly, a person's body mass index (BMI) is explained by several factors. Research shows that genetics is responsible for almost 64 percent of a person's BMI; environmental factors that are shared contribute about 26 percent. For children, the BMI of the head of household is the strongest predictor of a child's BMI.
Furthermore, Americans are increasingly taking advantage of the diversity of no- and low-calorie products our industry is already making available. While sales volume of industry products may be on the rise, the calories provided through those products is actually decreasing.
Simply put, a soft drink tax won't reduce childhood obesity and distracts from meaningful solutions. There are better initiatives to tackle obesity, such as teaching our children how to consume a healthy, balanced diet while keeping calories consumed in line with caloric needs for growth and being physically active every day. In fact, a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reaffirms that calories are calories, regardless of their source.
Government and industry need to focus on initiatives that make a difference -- like the national School Beverage Guidelines (www.schoolbeverages.com) that cap calories and reduce portion sizes from beverages in schools and reinforce the importance of balancing calories consumed while encouraging more physical activity to burn calories. Only through initiatives like these will we give our children the skills needed to balance calories throughout their lives and lead healthy lifestyles. Taxes won't provide children with these skills or have a lasting, meaningful impact on reducing childhood obesity.
The reality is that a soft drink tax is simply the wrong public policy.
As far as a soda tax goes, it's not a panacea, rather a small piece to a larger solution to the obesity problem. Also, the revenues raised can be used to address some of the other problems, like the nutritional value of school lunches. There are bigger issues that need to be addressed (agricultural subsidies), but a step in the right direction should not be avoided on the basis of not being a magic bullet.
There's a long, proud history of "sin taxes". This is just another case of placing additional penalties on people's bad behaviors.