[ad_1]
- Soda sales dropped 38% in Philadelphia after the city imposed a tax on sugar-containing beverages.
- The researchers found that Philly's beverage sales dropped, while they rose just outside its borders.
- The tax imposed in 2017 helps to generate funds for pre-kindergarten and to improve city parks and libraries.
New research reveals that sales of soda and other soft drinks dropped by nearly 40% in Philadelphia after the city taxed beverages in 2017. Beverage sales in the city limits dropped by 51%, but An increase in sales just outside of Philadelphia's borders resulted in a net drop of 38%, according to findings released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Philadelphia has imposed a 1.5 cents per ounce tax on sweetened beverages as of January 1, 2017, becoming the second largest city to do so after Berkeley, California, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania said. wrote the report.
Seven other US cities have taxed beverages, the researchers said. In addition to Berkeley and Philadelphia, this list includes Oakland, California and San Francisco; Boulder, Colorado; and Seattle.
The results reflect previous studies from other countries that have taxed beverages, but the drop in sales in Philadelphia has been more dramatic than those found in previous research. Contrary to studies in Berkeley and Mexico, sales of untaxed beverages did not increase, "suggesting that consumers were not substituting for these drinks in Philadelphia," the researchers said.
To control diabetes, tooth decay
These measures are part of an effort to fight obesity and other diseases and to generate income to fund social programs. In the case of Philadelphia, the tax would have generated more than $ 130 million to fund pre-kindergarten community schools and improvements in parks, recreation centers and libraries.
"When we think about what we really need to do to reduce chronic diseases in this country, including diabetes, obesity and overweight, we need massive interventions and the evidence is really The Berkeley Food Institute of the University of California at Berkeley, wrote in an editorial published with the study.
The latest study was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, supported by Michael Bloomberg, who, as mayor of New York, unsuccessfully tried to partially ban soft drinks and lobbied for taxes on beverages soft.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association end of March called for taxes and limits on marketing to children to reduce sugar consumption. He added that sugary drinks posed real – and preventable – risks to health, including tooth decay, diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
Research in the journal Science revealed that mice had colon tumors containing high fructose corn syrup in sugary beverages. And another study done at Harvard has associated the consumption of sugary drinks with higher risks of heart disease.
[ad_2]
Source link