Healthy Solution: Taxing Sugary Drinks

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Anh Nguyen Prof. Galassi Eng. 099 Asst # 5 17 July, 2014 Healthy solution: Taxing sugary drinks What are sugary drinks? Sugary drinks include non-diet sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks and sweetened fruit drinks. They contain little to no nutritional value and are one of the leading causes of obesity. With the recent increase of overweight and obese Americans, a debate has surfaced over whether the government should tax sugary drinks. Taxing sugary drinks is the right step because it could change people’s choices behavior, it reduces the number of people who purchase these drinks, it could pay for health education and medical expenses, and it helps prevent obesity. Taxing sugary drinks could change people’s choices behavior. People need to change their life style and learn to live more healthily. Healthy choices are always more expensive than bad choices. In “A Tax That Invests in Our Health” by Richard F. Daines, he remarks the reason that people prefer bad choice over healthy choice. He writes, Healthy choices are rising in price while the cost of bad choices falls. Low-fat milk costs more than soda. So grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods stock less milk and more soda, and the relentless advertising from the beverage industry and fast food joints makes sweet drinks an expected part of daily living. (633) This would be especially true for the poor because they have less money to waste, and they would think twice before using money to buy foods or drinks. The lower-price drinks would be more affordable. Increasing the cost of sugary drinks will change people’s opinion and behavior because healthy choices and bad choices will become equal. People always consider the price before the product’s quality so if the prices are the same, they will certainly prefer the quality and healthy choices. For example, the higher cost of cigarettes and alcohol

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