Soda Taxes: The Policy to Beat Obesity?

Written for the Fall 2018 class Urban Food Systems, this paper analyzes the effectiveness of Soda Taxes and their implementation as public policy. Public Health officials and policymakers have long searched for measures to address what many consider an epidemic: obesity in America. While some cities have created fresh food initiatives partnering with bodegas or urban produce programs to increase food access for the urban poor, a major policy proposal to combat obesity does not involve providing food at all. In the past ten years, soda taxes have gone from abstract theory to reality for almost 9 million Americans. The policy consists of leveraging taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages as a means to decrease purchase and consumption of soda or pop and thus combat obesity. While initial research shows soda taxes decrease sales of pop, the taxes are very controversial; nowhere was this more evident than in Cook County, which passed -- and repealed -- the nation’s largest soda tax in 2017.

The full paper is available here.