Dr. Mercola January 20 2009 53,832 views
A proposal on the table to help balance the New York state budget is an “obesity tax”, which would place an 18 percent sales tax on non-diet soda and other sweetened drinks with less than 70 percent fruit juice.
New York Governor Paterson said the tax would help raise $400 million, and State Health Commissioner Richard Daines made the YouTube video above explaining why he thinks it's a good idea. He points out how the obesity rate has increased as more people drink soda instead of milk.
Assemblyman Ron Canestrari, however, is opposed to the obesity tax. He argues that there are better ways to fight obesity and better ways to raise money for the cash strapped state.
It has long been my belief that one of the simplest and easiest steps the typical person can make to start taking control of their health is to replace ALL their fluid intake to pure water. If everyone were to take this one simple step there would be an explosion of health, and a dramatic drop in nearly all diseases.
Raising the price of sugar-laden drinks and sodas so they’re not cheaper than a bottle of plain water is likely a very good strategy overall. But whether or not it will have the intended outcome of actually lowering obesity rates, who knows? And whether the tax money raised will actually be used for effective health-promoting programs also remains to be seen.
What is sure, however, is that soda greatly contributes to our ever-rising obesity rates, and is a major detriment to overall health.
However, one important issue that is being overlooked is that of diet soda and other artificially sweetened drinks, which are not slated for additional taxes. I will go over the potential ramifications of this decision in just a moment.
How Soda and Sugary Drinks Contribute to the Obesity Epidemic
As of 2005, white bread was dethroned as the number one source of calories in the American diet, being replaced by soft drinks. During the past half-century, the number of carbonated soft-drink drinkers rose more than 450 percent and jumped from 11 gallons in 1946 to 49 gallons in the year 2000. Currently, the average American drinks more than 60 gallons of soft drinks each year. During this time, obesity rates have skyrocketed.
One independent, peer-reviewed study published in the British medical journal The Lancet demonstrated a strong link between soda consumption and childhood obesity. They found that 12-year-olds who drank soft drinks regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't.
In fact, for each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed during the nearly two-year study, the risk of obesity jumped by 60 percent. Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year!
At that rate, it’s no wonder more than 65 percent of all American adults struggle with overweight and obesity.
How Soda Affects Your Body
First of all, just one can of Coke contains 10 teaspoons of sugar. This is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake (which is more than double my recommended daily allowance to begin with). Within 20 minutes of drinking that soda, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.
Within 40 minutes, your blood pressure rises due to your body having absorbed all the caffeine, and then your livers dumps even more sugar into your bloodstream.
After about one hour, you’ll start to have a sugar crash, which oftentimes leads you into a vicious cycle of consuming more stimulants, followed by crashes, throughout your day.
It is also a proven fact that sugar increases your insulin levels, which can lead to not only weight gain, but also high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, premature aging and many more negative side effects. In fact, sugar is so bad for your health in so many ways, I even created an entire list outlining 100-Plus Ways in Which Sugar Can Damage Your Health.
Soda drinkers also have higher cancer risk, and soda has even been shown to cause DNA damage – courtesy of sodium benzoate, a common preservative found in many soft drinks, which has the ability to switch off vital parts of your DNA. This could eventually lead to diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver and Parkinson's.
So needless to say, anything that will curb the excessive consumption of soda can be a good move – as long as consumers aren’t willing to simply shell out more money for their daily soda fix…
Buyer Beware – Some Alternatives are Even More Dangerous Than Regular Soda!
I must remind you, however, that although diet sodas are not included in this proposed tax, diet sodas are actually even WORSE for your health than the sugar-laden ones!
For many years I didn’t know what was worse -- regular soda, with its sugar and high fructose corn syrup, or diet soda with its artificial sweeteners. Now, after doing years of hard research and writing Sweet Deception, I am absolutely convinced that diet sodas are FAR more harmful.
Not only do they cause the same insulin dysfunctions, but they also have additional inherent toxicities that are not present in natural products like sugar. In an analysis of 166 articles about aspartame published in medical journals, 91 percent of the independent studies -- 84 out of a total of 92 -- found at least one adverse health effect in its outcome.
Early safety studies of aspartame identified potential neurotoxic side effects. In one study, out of seven monkeys fed aspartame mixed with milk, one monkey died and five of the remaining had grand mal seizures. Other studies have shown that aspartic acid, one of the main ingredients in aspartame, causes damage to the brains of infant mice.
My sincere hope here is that, if this taxing proposal goes through, we don’t end up with an increase in diet soda consumption, because the public health ramifications of that could be far worse than what we’re currently dealing with.
Not only are most artificial sweeteners toxic to your system, but they also raise your risk of obesity even more than regular soda! Nearly a decade ago, studies were already revealing that artificial sweeteners can:
What’s the Healthiest Replacement for Soda?
Nothing beats pure water when it comes to serving your body’s needs, and cutting soda out of your diet is one of the easiest ways to improve your health and weight. It is one of the most crucial factors to deal with many of the health problems you or your children suffer.
If you really feel the urge for a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water with a squirt of lime or lemon juice.
Keep in mind, however, that bottled water is not an assurance of purity. In fact, about 40 percent of bottled water is regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment.
And, most municipal tap water -- though generally far from pure -- must actually adhere to stricter purity standards than the bottled water industry. In one study, a third of more than 100 bottled water brands tested for contaminants were found to contain chemicals like arsenic and carcinogenic compounds, at levels exceeding state or industry standards.
Your best bet is simply to filter your own water at home using a reverse osmosis filter.
Avoid drinking unfiltered tap water, as chlorine and fluoride (which are added to most municipal water supplies) are toxic chemicals that should not be consumed in large quantities.
How to Counteract Withdrawal Symptoms
If you struggle with an addiction to soda, (remember, sugar is actually more addictive than cocaine!) I strongly recommend you consider Turbo Tapping as a simple yet highly effective tool to help you stop this health-sucking habit. Turbo Tapping is a simple and clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique, designed to resolve many aspects of an issue in a concentrated period of time.
I thought that too. And it's been proven that people who drink large amounts of sugar free sodas still have a problem with weight as they tend to eat more. My MIL and SIL were drinking large amounts of diet DrPepper and wouldn't listen to me about the health effects. That is until my MIL was forced to stop drinking it and felt much better. My SIL still has daily migraines and other health issues but refuses to stop drinking it. She always has a cooler with diet DP every time I see her!
As far as soda of any kind causing the obesity epidemic, I strongly believe that this is just a scapegoat for the problem of overweight children and adults. First of all, look at the time frame of the studies, between the 1940's and today. What other changes have taken place in this time besides more soda and less milk? How about transportation? Back in the 1940's, families tended to have only one car for the entire family. People walked more. Children played outside more rather than driving to the mall. As a matter of fact, who ever heard of a mall back in the 1940's? And in the summer, when I was a child, I couldn't wait to go to the beach and swim all day (and what about all that sun for strong bones?) Then you have the electronic age. What child that you know does not have a "game-boy" type of video game? And a computer for each child, and a television in each bedroom. And even the infants have "Baby Einstein" which keeps them in front of the television all day. And you have the school systems. Back when I was in school (I'm 45 now) we had recess and gym was a requirement. Now you have less recreation time so there is more time for school work. And when kids get home from sitting on their buts all day in school, what do they do? They go in front of the computer! And what is served for dinner? Fast food, take-out, super-sized burgers! Yes, soda, candy, etc. will rot your teeth and add calories, but if everyone had as much recreation/exercise today as they had 50+ years ago, then there would be no obesity!
Amen, CCurtis, not to mention seeing 6 year olds in strollers because their idiot parents don't want the kids to get "tired" from walking a lot. What a crock, my kids can out walk me any time they feel like it. I ditched stollers as soon as they could walk without falling down constantly.
It would make more sense to me if all soda was taxed - and the revenue used to subsidise fruit and vegetables (including assistance for organic growers) and junior sport.
I like the idea-reality is we are going to have to pitch in to get oursleves out of this bad econonomy, though I also doubt the intent for the tax is to promote health, and I doubt the money will go to "effective" health programs. I like the idea because soda is so inexpensive already and is consumed in such immense quantities that taxing it will be alot less painful, if the tax is reasoable, than taxing more expensive items that are o.IN additio perhaps they cojuld iclude warnig labels on soda as they do with cigarettes but I doubt that will happe. I am more concerned that milk instead of water is bieng mentioned as the alternative to soda. One could get into the adverse effects of milk but that's a whole other conversation. Milk does not build strong bones- hah-the past couple of generations has drunk more milk than any other and has the highest arthritis rate (though soda(sugary AND diet) is also responsible as it leeches calcium from the bones). It would be nice if these unhealhtful foods cost more and healthy food could be bought for a reasonable price, perhpas more poor people would make better choices,who can blame many of them for poor choices when you can go to KFC or McD's and get a meal for 70% less than other places,u have 5 kids in the car after working all day,and drive thru a welocme relief at that point.And half of the people who eat these foods are addicted to them. Forced stressful lifestyle-lack of commuity because too many "have to" work,also causes the "hole" that people fill with addictive food and drink. A true act of charity to the poor would be to educate them about what is healhty eatig ad what is not and practical education that empowers families to transition to a healthy lifestyle.But I doubt much will change, even if you tell people for example to drink iced tea or green tea the affordable stuff will be loaded with high fructose corn syrup.The industries wont chage until consumers refuse to buy bad stuff.
I said this :
I like the idea because soda is so inexpensive already and is consumed in such immense quantities that taxing it will be alot less painful, if the tax is reasoable, than taxing more expensive items that are o
and meant to finish the sentence with "than taxing more expensive items that are consumed less." I dont think it should be called an "obesity tax" though -perhpas a warning label on sodas would be better.
There's an extra high alcohol and cigarette tax where I live, and it hasn't affected sales at all. The fact is, most people who drink soda on a regular basis are addicted to it and would pay for it no matter how expensive it got. Those who rarely drink it won't care that the tax is so high, because they RARELY buy it. I don't think it would help at all.
But I have to say I breathed a sigh of relief when the obesity tax was only referring to foods and not taxing the people themselves. I imagined getting a bill from the government "Your BMI is such and such and so here's the amount of taxes you have to pay." heh
Islander, you hit the nail on the head. As you said, "Whatever else taxes may be, they should not be a punishment for behavior."
People drink that stuff because they are addicted to it in many cases. So what we have is a tax policy to treat a metabolic condition. And we get to blame fat people...what rights should they have - they are fat! Yeah, lets over tax the fat people! (end sarcasm)
How about getting rid of the demand for it...now there's an idea for you. I used to eat huge amounts of ice cream - a half gallon in 24 hours twice a week. I would have eaten more but was too ashamed to buy more.
Today you could put a bowl of ice cream in front of me but I'd have no desire for it. I don't use will power - I have no desire for it.
I got rid of the desire by getting rid of the yeast, patching up the holes, and restoring the friendly bacteria. So I don't crave ice cream, sodas, cookies, candy, etc.
hubpages.com/.../How-to-Flatten-Your-Tummy-and-End-Food-Cravings-EFFORTLESSLY
Kris588, you have made a good point; if further taxation is necessary then why not levy it on inessential items and especially those generally accepted as being unhealthy. This does sound sensible and reasonable so why are so many quibbling?
It is a misconception that reward changes behaviour. This arose from animal studies but human experience shows that it serves to reinforce behaviour. Anyone who believes otherwise is suffering from intellectual myopia. There has to be an 'or else' factor in society which is a short-term expedient and an excellent social control. This is why the Bible has the ten commandments and Tutankhamun had the flail on one hand and the shepherd's crook on the other and that was 3.5m ago! This simple logic dates back into time immemorial; it is a natural part of human order.
Obviously, NY is looking for ways to raise taxes that will not hurt but the media and the press typically are having a field-day pandering to and patronising public prejudice and some are fatuous to believe what they are told by profiteerers!
Well said Kris588 and well done NY NY!
An Obesity Tax? Bad idea! You cannot force people to be thin. If you want to help obese people then educate them with compassion so that they're personal philosophy becomes one of hope and love of self. Do you think these people really love being obese? Okay, maybe a few but it's just that, a few.
To you who believe this tax idea sounds good on the surface I say beware as it is cloaked in sheep's clothing. Do you really want others dictating to you what your choices should be, and for what reasons would you want such personal control?
Yes, but they also tax cigarettes because it is bad all around.
Thanks Duparc, yes, it seems like a sensible way to raise needed money, the tax I am sure is not going to be astronomical. I think we're getting the big thumbs down because most of the commenters are against taxes being raised. I am not crazy about paying taxes but like you said this is a non-essentail item consumed in large -humungous quantities-and like it ornotwe are in a collective hole and money is going to have to come from somewhere.It may not help the consumersof soda, but I think it wont really hurt anyone either-at least in any significant way, by having soda being taxed. I doubt any behavior change will come with it and it'shard believe that curbing obesity is the intent,butI guess it could be. However, doing it out of a spirit of punishing fatpeople-they could have come up with amoreappealingcampaign.
you shouldn't include butter on your list, put the word margarine in their instead...butter is not bad, maybe research that one
"ditto"
Angela:
But who would determine what is healthy? If we went by government standards, they would tax eggs for high cholesterol, butter for the fat, coconut oil for the saturated fat, and raw milk because it may not be safe! And things like nutrasweet, splenda, and packaged egg product would be considered healthy because of no fat or sugar!
I agree wity you. The tax monies raised will be put in NY State's generel fund and won't go for health eduction--the same as the NYS Lottery doesn't go to the schools.
This is all fine and dandy,.......talking about the evils of many of the liquid drinks that people consume. However, the "real" concern here is Govt getting involved in telling you what you can & can't consume. Ultimately, Everyone is responsible for THEIR OWN HEALTH and it should not be the right of the Govt to start dictating what you can or can't consume. Nor is it proper for Govt to come up with Bogus ways of implementing yet ANOTHER way to Tax the American people.
One of the taxes in Australia is the Goods and Services tax.
The theory is that basic food neccessities do not attract GST - bread, fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs and unprocessed meats.
If there were a tax that only related to processed foods it probably would not affect food choices - the GST doesn't seem to have affected food choices here.
Honesty in advertising might be a little helpful, public education in dietary basics a little more so.
After all, how many people REALLY understand that omega 3 and omega 6 oil intake needs to be balanced and some saturated fat is neccessary for health?
Dave, While I totally agree with your mindset on government most of the time, do you not agree that our government is in place for the benefit of the people and that, with this basic tenent in mind, the need of the many vastly out-weighs the needs of the few. This meaning that it is a fact, no matter how you personally see it, that the obesity rate in our country is absurd and this has a drastic and painful effect on the economy in regards to the cost of insurance (for the "regular" person/family) and the cost of health care.
People should be allowed to be "responsible for THEIR OWN HEALTH." And yes, "it should not be the right of the Govt to start dictating what you can or can't consume," BUT...at what point does the government have the right to begin to step in and protect the rights of the rest of the people.
This tax is a bad idea, but only because it fails to adequately protect the health of the people that it is claiming to protect. A later post says why not tax beer and wine, and ice cream and candy the same way. Well, why not? If we did so it would be a horrible day in this country. However, Brian1 gives this link, I suggest you look at it. It isn't the best study in the world, but I can promise you, with my years of experience in researching nutrition, exercise and fitness, that is certainly is not the worst study ever done...and I can garantee you that there are studies that are of dramatically less quality that are being used as we speak (some from present time and some from "the stone age of research") to influence policy at every level for anything and everything you can imagine. This tax is a bad idea (no real HEALTH protection), but obesity costs this country and its people their money and their lives. What's your suggestion?
Hrdtrnr, when you talk about Government having to step in to defend your rights, what rights are you talking about? The right not to eat the foods you like, perhaps?
The only rights you have are the right for life and pursuit of happiness, and the right to defend yourself from physical violence, coercion, and theft of your property. There's no other rights. Being obese or not obese is your own choice.
If you don't want to be obese, you should find out what makes you obese and address that cause in a way you see fit for you. It is not Government's job to watch your calorie intake and determine what foods are good or bad for you. Government should only be your body guard, consultant and arbiter, protecting you from physical violence, coercion, theft and destruction of your property. No more, no less, unless you are eager to find yourself living in a socialist state, in which case your liberty is doomed.