Can Americans tax themselves out of their obesity crisis? A new analysis of Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation “soda tax” offers encouraging results about its power to change people’s dietary habits.
Five months after the city implemented its penny-per-ounce tax on all manner of sugar-sweetened beverages, lower-income residents had reduced their consumption by 21%, compared to the pre-tax days. Meanwhile, their counterparts in neighboring Oakland and San Francisco increased the amount of sugary drinks consumed by 4% during the same period, according to a study published Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health.
Instead of swilling as much Coke, Gatorade, Red Bull and Hawaiian Punch, the Berkeley residents boosted their water consumption by 63%. In the neighboring cities, low-income residents drank only 19% more water during the study period.
The results provide strong evidence that the sin taxes that helped steer consumers away from alcohol and tobacco products can also work on sugary drinks such as soda, said Dr. Kristine Madsen, a public health researcher at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study.
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