Sugared drink tax -- MHO
Okay -- this is all I will say about it -- since I don't buy drinks with sugar anymore, my opinion is kinda limited.
If they think that taxing these drinks will deter consumption because reduced consumption of sugared drinks will get rid of OBEEEEZITEEEE!!!!!! then they are just plain stupid. Have people completely stopped smoking because cigarettes are taxed to high heaven? NO. They are quitting because draconian public smoking laws are forcing them to stop. They will literally have to outlaw pop if they want people to stop drinking it.
Will stopping pop drinking stem the GREAT FAT TIDE OF OMG OBEEEEEZITEEE? When my husband stopped drinking regular pop and switched to diet, he did lose 30 lbs. that he never gained back. BUT, he was over 300 lbs when he stopped drinking pop -- so losing 30 lbs only took him down to 280-270, which for his height still put him at an OBEEEZE! BMI. I have never heard of anyone else losing so much weight when only stopping pop drinking, and at that point that really was the only diet change he made, so I know and he knows it really was the pop. I think that is a really unusual result, so I'm going to say I think most people would not lose nearly as much weight on just eliminating pop from the diet. My husband used to drink A LOT of pop, probably more than most people do.
It's also true I know someone who stopped drinking pop and switched over totally to non carbonated beverages. But primarily things like fruit juice and flavored sweetened tea. He did not lose any weight at all. Was it the sugar content? Probably. Would these drinks also be taxed? I really doubt it, because there is a perception that fruit based drinks and flavored tea is more natural or better for you. It's still sugar though, whether we are talking about "cane sugar" which (if you watched the videos i recently posted, you know is a glucose molecule together with a fructose molecule,) or natural fructose from fruit juice, or HFC, which is some franken-monster fructose molecule. Either way you're getting excess fructose, and in my humble opinion THAT is probably part of the OBEEZITY EPIPANIC.
But even eliminating excess fructose from the available food supply would not magically eliminate fat people from the population. Being fat is just one possibility among all the possible human body potentials. The problem here is that we are demonizing fat, and marginalizing fat people. A tax on sugared drinks helps no one. May not really hurt anyone either but it certainly won't "solve" the imaginary "problem."
If they think that taxing these drinks will deter consumption because reduced consumption of sugared drinks will get rid of OBEEEEZITEEEE!!!!!! then they are just plain stupid. Have people completely stopped smoking because cigarettes are taxed to high heaven? NO. They are quitting because draconian public smoking laws are forcing them to stop. They will literally have to outlaw pop if they want people to stop drinking it.
Will stopping pop drinking stem the GREAT FAT TIDE OF OMG OBEEEEEZITEEE? When my husband stopped drinking regular pop and switched to diet, he did lose 30 lbs. that he never gained back. BUT, he was over 300 lbs when he stopped drinking pop -- so losing 30 lbs only took him down to 280-270, which for his height still put him at an OBEEEZE! BMI. I have never heard of anyone else losing so much weight when only stopping pop drinking, and at that point that really was the only diet change he made, so I know and he knows it really was the pop. I think that is a really unusual result, so I'm going to say I think most people would not lose nearly as much weight on just eliminating pop from the diet. My husband used to drink A LOT of pop, probably more than most people do.
It's also true I know someone who stopped drinking pop and switched over totally to non carbonated beverages. But primarily things like fruit juice and flavored sweetened tea. He did not lose any weight at all. Was it the sugar content? Probably. Would these drinks also be taxed? I really doubt it, because there is a perception that fruit based drinks and flavored tea is more natural or better for you. It's still sugar though, whether we are talking about "cane sugar" which (if you watched the videos i recently posted, you know is a glucose molecule together with a fructose molecule,) or natural fructose from fruit juice, or HFC, which is some franken-monster fructose molecule. Either way you're getting excess fructose, and in my humble opinion THAT is probably part of the OBEEZITY EPIPANIC.
But even eliminating excess fructose from the available food supply would not magically eliminate fat people from the population. Being fat is just one possibility among all the possible human body potentials. The problem here is that we are demonizing fat, and marginalizing fat people. A tax on sugared drinks helps no one. May not really hurt anyone either but it certainly won't "solve" the imaginary "problem."