May 7, 2021 — Late last week, the FDA announced that it intends to ban menthol cigarettes. This is in part because these are the cigarettes that Black smokers prefer. Smoking takes a bigger toll on Blacks than Whites, so maybe this will help reduce a source of health disparities. Indeed it sounds like a good idea. Except that […]
May 13, 2020 — Two new papers give us a mixed picture of results from the holy war to drive sweet drinks from the American diet. On the front lines in Oakland, California, economists tell us that a beverage tax has had negligible effects. But the good news is that perhaps that doesn’t matter. Researchers have discovered that sweetened […]
April 26, 2020 — When reality is filled with pesky problems, people need an escape. With a new paper in Pediatric Obesity Rossana Torres‐Álvarez et al offer us such an escape. They describe a model for the effectiveness of beverage taxes to reduce childhood obesity in Mexico. Based on assumptions that these taxes will work, they built their model. […]
September 22, 2019 — Unsuccessful success is one way to describe the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) in the UK. Many people, like Susan Jebb and Theresa Marteau, call this tax on sugary beverages a success. “The benefit of fiscal intervention is clear,” they say. People are buying less sugar in drinks. In fact, they’re buying about 22 percent […]
September 9, 2019 — Reducing the intake of sugary drinks is presently quite important to many public health advocates. Taxes on sweet drinks are one effective way to do this. And advocates are convinced that the result will be better health – less obesity and less diabetes. But it’s worth asking: what will take the place of those sugary […]
January 25, 2018 — Will taxing sodas bring us more alcohol consumption? That’s the heretical question raised by a new study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The answer they found is a bit complicated. But it’s clear that less soda can mean more beer. Many Choices for Food and Beverages Food and beverage taxes as a […]
October 18, 2017 — Leave our pumpkin spice alone, daggone it! Everyone is taking a shot at robbing us of the joy that pumpkin spice brings to fall. John Oliver is mocking us. Frank Bruni is telling us pumpkin spice will destroy us all. But the cruelest insult comes from MagnifyMoney, where Brittney Laryea tells us we’re paying a huge […]
October 11, 2017 — The soda tax we barely knew in Chicago is fading into history. Big soda is celebrating a win. Big soda haters are nursing their wounds. In the face of intense public pressure yesterday, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to roll back the county’s tax scheme on December 1. It only went into effect […]
