But, a new study out is showing that small taxes on sodas aren't curbing obesity rates.
When talking about how this tax didn't curb obesity rates, we're specifically about obesity rates in children.
The researcher looked over surveys of over 7,000 fifth graders and looked at how their height to weight ratio changed over a two year period and compared that to the number of high sugar sodas or sports drinks that they drank. They then compared that to the soda taxes that were in effect at the time of the survey (survey was done in 2004).
Two-thirds of the children lived in states that had a tax on sodas where the average tax was 4 cents on the dollar.
What they found was:
They found the taxes made no real difference on overall soda consumption or on obesity for kids overall. They did have a small effect on certain children — especially those from families with an annual income of $25,000 or less. Those kids — who drank about seven cans of soda a week, on average — drank one less can because of the taxes, Sturm said.
At first look, dropping from seven sodas a week to six doesn't seem like a big deal. But, I wrote a while back about soda being bad and gave the breakdown of how cutting out a regular soda habit without changing anything else in your diet can result in significant weight loss over time.
In this situation, if a child was consuming one less 20-ounce soda a week (because really, I think the chances are that it's a 20-ounce bottle they are consuming and not a 12-ounce can), that would reduce the amount of calories they are consuming by 242.5 a week. Over the course of a year, that would 12,610 less calories.
It takes a reduction of 3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat. So in this situation, that would mean over the course of a year, by just dropping this one soda a week and changing nothing else would theoretically result in a three and a half pound weight loss.
The researchers claim though that if the tax was more like 18 cents on the dollar, that might significantly reduce soda consumption.
I'm not sure that I completely buy that. I think it would have to be significantly higher for consumption to really be affected.
I think the last time I looked, a 20-ounce bottle of soda here in Michigan goes for around $1.50 (plus deposit). If you added on 18 cents on the dollar to that, you'd pay around $1.87. Chances are when you buy that now, you give the cashier $2.00. If that tax was added, you'd still give the cashier $2.00 and simply get less change back and wouldn't think twice about it.
Think of the situation with the cigarette tax. In Michigan, the state tax on a 20 pack of cigarettes is $2.00 and then there's the federal tax of $1.01. Essentially, a pack of cigarettes cost $6 with roughly half of that being a tax.
A lot of people still continue to smoke regardless of that price and regardless of the fact that half of it is a tax, but at the same time, a lot of people have quit because of that high price.
I would almost think that in order to reduce the consumption of soda significantly, the tax on sodas would have to make the price of the soda double as well.
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