In the September 17, 2009 article "Calif. lawmaker plans hearings on soda-obesity link," Lisa Baertlein reports "the California lawmaker who spearheaded a high-profile anti-obesity effort across the country's most populous state is now training his sights on sugar-sweetened drinks."Sen. Alex Padilla, who led a campaign requiring big restaurant chains to disclose calories in meals, said on Thursday he planned to hold hearings in November on the link between soda consumption and obesity.
The announcement from Padilla -- who chairs the California Senate's Select Committee on Obesity and Diabetes -- coincides with the release of a study that shows nearly two-thirds of children aged 12 to 17 gulp down at least one sugar-sweetened beverage daily.
According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, 62 percent of children aged 12 to 17, and 41 percent of children aged 2 to 11, drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day.
"I don't think that most parents truly appreciate the role soda pop has in causing weight gain," Padilla said. "It is unfortunate that soda is actually cheaper than milk and even bottled water in many instances."
Padilla said California needs to do more to educate the public about the health effects of drinking too much soda and to consider its options for reducing soda consumption among children.
California was the first state to pass menu labeling rules and has been among the pioneers of public health initiatives such as bans on artery-clogging trans-fats in restaurant cuisine and on soda sales in public schools.
Experts say the U.S. obesity epidemic has turned into a public health crisis and overweight adolescents are starting to suffer problems that used to plague mainly middle-aged adults -- early heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
SHARP CUTBACK RECOMMENDED
The American Heart Association in August took on the $115 billion soft drink industry, recommending that Americans cut back dramatically on sugar and singling out soft drinks as the top source of "discretionary" sugar calories.
The group said women should eat no more than 100 calories of added processed sugar per day, or six teaspoons (25 grams), while most men should keep it to just 150 calories or nine teaspoons (37.5 grams).
To put that in perspective, one 12-ounce (355-millilitre) can of soda can contain as much as 13 teaspoons (54.6 grams) of sugar, often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.
That's more than half the total 22 teaspoons (90 grams) or 355 calories of added sugar consumed by the average American each day, according to a 2004 government survey.
Being overweight costs, experts say.
Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all medical spending in the United States, or an estimated $147 billion annually. Health experts increasingly are calling for taxes on soft drinks and other sweetened beverages to offset medical costs and fund public health efforts.
"If we are serious about curbing the obesity epidemic, we have to start with the biggest culprit," said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.
A strongly worded report on child obesity released earlier this month recommended that state and local governments tax junk food and soft drinks, give tax breaks to grocery stores that open in blighted neighborhoods and build bike trails. Some public health experts would like to see tax proceeds used to make fresh fruits and vegetables more affordable.
The American Beverage Association has opposed efforts to tax soda and other beverages and says it provides a wide variety of beverage choices, including drinks with zero calories.
"If our goal is to address obesity, then educating consumers about the importance of balancing calories consumed from all foods and beverages with the calories expended through physical activity is what matters -- not demonizing any one particular food," the group said in a statement on Thursday.
An industry group called Americans Against Food Taxes -- whose backers include soft drink maker PepsiCo Inc, the American Beverage Association, the Corn Refiners Association and McDonald's Corp -- is running anti-soda tax advertisements on television, radio and on the Internet.
Economic policy in two sentences: (1) If you want more of something, subsidize it. (2) If you want less of something, tax it. The July 30, 2009 article "Tax sodapop to fight fat, US health officials say" by Karin Zeitvogel discusses a proposal to tax soda to discourage its consumption:WASHINGTON (AFP) – US health sheriffs want to ride the sugary drinks that are helping to make Americans fat out of town, or at least off Americans' menu of choice, and one way they suggest going about it is by taxing sodapop.
"The average American consumes roughly 250 calories more today than they did two or three decades ago, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Thomas Frieden, said at the "Weight of the Nation" conference on obesity held in Washington this week.
"And of that, about 120 calories is in the form of sodas and other sugared food and beverages," he said.
The average daily recommended caloric intake for adults is about 2,000 calories per day, a number that varies depending on a person's sex, height, weight and rate of activity.
Two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight -- or shaped more like the bulbous Orangina bottle than the hourglass classic Coca-Cola bottle -- and obesity-related illnesses cost the United States nearly 150 billion dollars a year, health officials at the conference were told.
A soda tax would not only help Americans to slim down but could raise revenues that would help to offset the rising sums spent to treat preventable health conditions caused by obesity.
"The estimates we've seen suggest that a one-penny-per-ounce tax nationally would raise something in the order of 100 to 200 billion dollars over a 10-year time frame, as well as significantly reducing caloric intake -- at least from soda and sugar-sweetened beverages," Frieden said.
According to Julie Greenstein of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), around 40 of the 50 US states already have soft drink or junk food taxes, but they are usually too low to have an effect on consumption.
The CSPI, which has advocated for health, nutrition and food safety in the United States since 1971, says a soft drink tax would "be a great way to pay for health reform and expansion" and wants to see such a tax imposed nationally.
A tax on soft drinks was included as a possible option in the health reform bill drafted by the Senate finance committee, said Greenstein, although she was unsure if the proposed levy would make it through to the final version of the proposed health care legislation.
"The soft drink industry has a very powerful lobby," she said.
Last week, the Coca Cola Corporation was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that "the consumer in this environment is not ready for a tax on a basic staple like non-alcoholic beverages."
Frieden has based his call for a soda tax on the campaign he instigated in New York City, where he was health commissioner for seven years, which practically ran the Marlboro man out of town.
A year after he became health commissioner of New York in 2002, Frieden started raising taxes on cigarettes to the point where if you buy a packet of 20 in the Big Apple today, you don't get much change from 10 dollars.
He reasoned that people would kick their cigarette habit if it cost too much. And he was right.
"We reduced adult smoking by 25 percent and teen smoking by 50 percent in six years. About half of that reduction was the result of taxation," Frieden said.
A similar tactic applied to sodas could help to cut consumption of the sugary drinks, he reasoned, but added that the decision to impose a national soda tax was one for the politicians, not health officials.
"Whether it gets done is a political question, but what we can say as the nation's prevention agency is that obesity is an enormous problem, and price interventions are likely to be effective," he said.
