Sugar-sweetened beverages as the new tobacco: examining a proposed tax policy through a Canadian social justice lens

Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is consistently, positively associated with obesity. A much-discussed policy lever to address obesity is taxation of such beverages. The Canadian Diabetes Association, Heart and Stroke Foundation and World Health Organization (WHO) have endorsed taxation on sugar-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Medical Association journal (CMAJ) 2018-03, Vol.190 (11), p.E327-E330
Main Authors: Riediger, Natalie D., PhD, Bombak, Andrea E., PhD
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Beverages
Canada
Carbonated Beverages - economics
Commerce
Dietary Sucrose - economics
Health Promotion - economics
Health risk assessment
Humans
Internal Medicine
Obesity - prevention & control
Policy Making
Population Groups
Public health
Social Justice
Social Stigma
Socioeconomic factors
Soft drinks
Sugar
Tax policy
Taxation
Taxes - economics
Tobacco products
Tobacco Use - economics
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Summary:Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is consistently, positively associated with obesity. A much-discussed policy lever to address obesity is taxation of such beverages. The Canadian Diabetes Association, Heart and Stroke Foundation and World Health Organization (WHO) have endorsed taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages, although no Canadian jurisdictions have yet implemented such a tax. Proponents of this taxation often point to the effectiveness of taxation on tobacco as a policy to reduce smoking rates at the population level and consider the effects of tobacco taxation to be a useful benchmark for predicting the behavioral and health effects of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. Lessons learned from taxation on tobacco should be considered in discussions on taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages. Taxation on tobacco has contributed to widening socioeconomic inequalities in smoking. Here, Riediger and Bombak discuss taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages.
ISSN:0820-3946
1488-2329
DOI:10.1503/cmaj.170379