These days in public health schools, the epidemic of type 2 diabetes, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease are studied as the real cost of colas and other sugar drinks. It’s also why cities, states, and some in Congress are proposing sugar drink taxes.
In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that type 2 diabetes — the type usually caused by diet and obesity — accounted for almost 95 percent of the adult cases of diabetes in Georgia. Medical costs for diabetes in 2007 totaled $3.3 billion in Georgia and lost productivity accounted for another $1.8 billion. Each case of diabetes costs Georgia’s Medicaid program $3,200, or $372.6 million in 2007.
With almost each new scientific study, the case for the link between sugar drinks and type 2 diabetes grows stronger. The federal government’s 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee comprehensively reviewed the scientific literature and concluded:
“Strong evidence shows that higher consumption of added sugars, especially sugar-sweetened beverages, increases the risk of type 2 diabetes among adults and this relationship is not fully explained by body weight.”
Moreover, the consumption patterns that lead to this increased risk of type 2 diabetes are what the industry promotes with its ever-present and ubiquitous marketing. Sugar drinks are still the default option on too many restaurant kids’ meals, and box stores’ promotional “family dinners” come with 2-liter bottles. Consuming sugar drinks regularly – one to two cans a day or more – can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by 26 percent.
Finally, communities of color and lower economic standing are those who bear the burden of these soda-related diseases. In 2013, obesity prevalence in Georgia was a little more than 30 percent, but for African-American adults it was 38 percent.
Those are the numbers and facts behind the human stories of illness and suffering that have made sugar drink taxes a compelling public policy choice despite the industry’s chorus of calorie balance, consumer freedom and regressiveness. For instance, the University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity calculates that taxing sugar drinks at a rate of one penny per ounce would raise more than $465 million annually in Georgia.
Investing those resources in prevention and treatment programs in Georgia, as well as physical activity initiatives, would offset the social costs that the sugar-drink manufacturers have pushed on their customers in the guise of cheap prices and pleasure.
If the economic modeling done for the impact of excise taxes on sugar drinks is correct, such a levy would have the additional health benefit of reducing consumption. CDC reported that in 2012 almost 23 percent of Georgia adults said they drank more than one regular soda a day – a rate just about guaranteed to increase the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the Peach State.
And that brings us to another favorite industry argument: the sugar in soda is just like the sugar in a peach. Except it’s not, as anyone who has eaten a peach or drunk a cola knows instinctively. That peach contains fiber and nutrients; the cola has neither for all its momentary pleasure. Moreover, science now tells us that the momentary pleasure in the brain occurs while the liver is overwhelmed and stores the excess sugar as fat.
Cheap soda has taxed this nation dearly. It’s time to tax it back.
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