Soda tax 'more powerful than anything I've ever seen'

As voters consider soda taxes in fourU.S. cities, a new study finds that low-income Berkeleyneighbourhoods slashed sugar-sweetened beverage consumption bymore than one-fifth after the Northern California city enactedthe first soda tax in the U.S.

Berkeley voters in 2014 levied a penny-per-ounce tax on sodaand other sugary drinks to try to curb consumption and stem therising tide of diabetes and obesity. After the tax took effectin March 2015, residents of two low-income neighbourhoodsreported drinking 21 per cent less of all sugar-sweetenedbeverages and 26 per cent less soda than they had the yearbefore, according to the report in the October American Journalof Public Health.

"From a public health perspective, that is a huge impact.

That is an intervention that's more powerful than anything I'veever seen aimed at changing someone's dietary behaviour," seniorauthor Dr. Kristine Madsen said in a telephone interview.

Madsen, a professor of public health at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley, said the drop in sugary drinkconsumption surpassed her expectations, though it was consistentwith consumption declines in low-income neighbourhoods in Mexicoafter it imposed a nationwide tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

The Berkeley results also pleasantly surprised MarionNestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public healthat New York University.

"I hadn't expected the effects to be so dramatic," she saidin an email. "This is substantial evidence that soda taxeswork."

The soda industry has spent millions of dollars defeatingtaxes on sugary drinks in dozens of U.S. cities. But the taxpassed easily with 76 per cent of the vote in Berkeley. Inaddition to soda, the measure covers sweetened fruit-flavoureddrinks, energy drinks like Red Bull and caffeinated drinks likeFrappuccino iced coffee. Diet beverages are exempt.

In June, the Philadelphia City Council enacted its own taxon sugar-sweetened beverages. The 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax is setto take effect in January, although soda trade groups have suedto try to block the measure.

Meanwhile, voters in Boulder, Colorado and the Bay Areacities of San Francisco, Oakland and Albany will vote on whetherto tax their sugary beverages on November 8.

San Francisco voters also considered a soda tax in 2014, butit failed to garner a two-thirds majority needed for approval.

Public health officials and politicians point to theBerkeley study as proof of the power of an excise tax to wean residents of low-income neighbourhoods off sweetened drinks.

"The study is another tool highlighting how effective a taxon sugary beverages will be on changing the consumption rate,"San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen told Reuters Health.

"Just like tobacco, these are commodities we can livewithout that are killing us," she said. Cohen wrote the SanFrancisco ballot measure.

Researchers surveyed 873 adults in low-income commercialneighbourhoods in Berkeley and 1,806 adults in similarneighbourhoods in nearby San Francisco and Oakland before and afew months after imposition of the soda tax.

Sweetened beverage consumption increased slightly in SanFrancisco and Oakland at the same time it dropped in Berkeley,the study showed. In Berkeley, water consumption spiked 63per cent, compared to 19 per cent in San Francisco and Oakland,after the tax took effect.

The researchers attributed the surge in water consumption toa heat wave. But the American Beverage Association saw it asexample of the study's flaws.

In a statement, Brad Williams, an economist working for thetrade group, criticized the research for using "unreliable andimprecise methodology" and producing "implausible" results.

The association's criticism may hold grains of truth, Nestlesaid. But she largely dismissed it. "Obviously, the ABA is goingto attack the results. That's rule number one in the playbook:cast doubt on the science," she said.

Public health experts believe soda helped drive Americanobesity rates to among the highest in the world. The U.S. spentan estimated $190 billion US treating obesity-related conditions in2012.

Diabetes rates have almost tripled over the past threedecades, while sugary beverage consumption doubled.