Breaking News: Four Cities All Vote in Favor of Soda Tax

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Voters chose health in California and Boulder, where measures were passed on November 8th, 2016 to tax sugary beverages in hopes to decrease high rates of chronic disease and fund more public health programs.

Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association said, “From sports drinks to sodas to fruit-flavored drinks, today’s children are drinking their age in these sugary drinks each week. Reducing consumption will improve rates of diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay.”

In California, support for soda taxes was reported in all cities. San Francisco had support with 62% of votes, Albany with 71%, and Oakland came out with 61% of support for votes to pass a penny-per-ounce soda tax. While measures in Boulder, Colorado, were also supported with over 54 % of voters leading the support of the highest tax of a 2-cents-per-fluid-ounce excise tax on beverage distributors with at least 5 grams of added sugar per 12 ounces of beverages, not to include alcohol, medical beverages, milk products or 100% juice beverages.

A statement from the Public Health Institute in Oakland, Calif., reported that in spite of record-breaking spending by Big Soda of more than 20 million dollars, support from voters led the way in preventing more devastating impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages on their loved ones and communities.

“This vote is an historic turning point in the effort to bring sugar back to healthy levels. Interest in this issue was soaring even before this key victory – we’ve heard from 12 cities and six states seriously considering a tax on sugary drinks in 2017. Now we expect many more places to act to tax an unhealthy product to raise revenue to promote health and other community priorities, reduce diabetes rates and give an edge to the products that are better for their health,” Jim Krieger, MD, MPH, the executive director of Healthy Food America, stated.

The collection for Oakland’s soda tax measure is projected to start in July of next year and more cities and states are also discussing and or working towards similar measures including Cook County, Illinois, Watsonville, Calif. and also in West Virginia.

A recent study from Harvard research revealed that if Cook County approves a soda tax measure, it may have the potential to reduce diabetes, extend lives, and avert $222 million in health costs over 10 years.

Regular consumers of sugary beverages have a 26% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Latino kids drink more than their peers in sugary beverages, and if trends continue in this direction, many kids will, unfortunately, have dim health futures. 

Many measures can be done to help limit sugary beverages for all kids and help educate consumers of healthy options. To learn more about the importance of limiting sugary drinks for all kids, especially Latino kids, click here.

By The Numbers By The Numbers

74

percent

of Latino kids have had a sugary drink by age 2 (vs. 45% of white kids)

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