TAX sugary drinks just like booze and cigarettes. That鈥檚 what two US states are proposing, but are such taxes key to fighting flab or an unjustified attack on consumer choice?
Most US states impose a small tax on junk food, but recently Maine and New York have proposed hefty taxes on sugared drinks. Now of Yale University and Thomas Frieden, health commissioner for the City of New York, estimate that a proposed 鈥減enny-per-ounce鈥� tax on sweet drinks in New York state would reduce each person鈥檚 annual energy intake by 8000 calories and their weight by a kilogram (The New England Journal of Medicine, ).
John Krebs, former head of the UK Food Standards Agency, points out that it may be harder to justify taxing sugary drinks than cigarettes and alcohol, which have 鈥減assive鈥� health impacts on others.
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