The Soda Strategy for Healthier Kids

I’m not a purist. I try to be healthy, but I’ve had my share of soda addictions over the years. There was the Dr. Pepper-for-breakfast era in high school. Classic Coke in college. And anyone who sat in a conference room with me between 1995 and 2007 knows that diet Coke got me through many a long meeting. I’ve done my share to pay Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent’s salary. But honestly, I care more about children’s health and covering the cost of health care than I do about Kent’s efforts to give the world a Coke and a smile. So his Cold War era argument against President Obama’s proposal to tax soda to help pay some of the costs of health care reform, currently being considered by President Obama and Congress leaves me a bit, well, cold.

While speaking at the Rotary Club in Atlanta (home of Coca-Cola), he said, “I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink. If it worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.” Choice of beverage caused the fall of the Soviet Union? That seems unlikely.
The fact is that we know children’s consumption of soda contributes to childhood obesity. And we know that the public is paying at least part of the costs of treating that childhood obesity and the diseases related to it, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. When a public health problem becomes not just a belt-buster but a budget buster, it’s time for government to step in.
The federal government has a couple of policy options to lower children’s soft drink consumption. One strategy is public education, and that is obviously important. It can reach children directly, compete with the Mountain Dew ads on TV, and create a culture in which the behavior is less accepted. Education has been an effective part of the efforts to keep kids from smoking and using drugs. (Remember this ad?)

But the evidence seems to show that these campaigns work best in combination with attempts to make it harder to purchase the substance of choice – making them more expensive (yes, through taxes) or banning them entirely. So the second strategy government can use is to target the purse strings of the primary purchasers of sugary sodas (parents) and make it less attractive to fill their shopping carts with two-liter bottles of Yoo-hoo.
A soda tax is likely to decrease soda drinking among adults and children alike, and that can only be good for public health. But to the extent folks keep buying Coke, the tax has another benefit. Those revenues can be set aside to help pay the costs of the health problems the children and adults who continue to drink soda are likely to develop. In policy terms, that’s a win-win.
There is another criticism to the soda tax and other “sin taxes” like it. Some are concerned that such taxes are regressive – that is, that they demand more from lower income tax payers who can afford it least. One study of New Yorkers did in fact find a relationship between soda consumption and lower household income. But even if that is true nationally, soda addiction is not nearly as strong as tobacco addiction or alcohol addiction. People have choices, and for the sake of kids’ health, they need to make smart ones. Maybe a soda tax will be the push they need to make better, healthier choices for healthier children.
To weigh in on the soda tax, contact your Senator or the White House today. For more information, visit the Campaign for Commercial Free Children, or (for a different point of view) the American Beverage Association.