Sugary drinks are beverages with added caloric sweeteners that include sodas, fruit drinks, sports drinks, ready-to-drink tea and coffee, enhanced water, and energy drinks. They are a significant source of "empty" calories and a major contributor of added sugars in the American diet. The negative health effects of excessive consumption of sugary drinks, including weight gain and increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dental caries, and osteoporosis have prompted recommendations to target taxes at sugary drinks. Such taxes have been implemented so far in more than 40 countries and 8 localities in the US. Evaluations of these interventions provide increasingly strong evidence of reduced purchases of sugary drinks as a result of their taxation. They also bring in significant tax revenue that can be used to further support public health.
Tax Policies and Sugary Drinks
Using tax policy has been proposed as a potential mechanism for increasing relative prices of unhealthy products and improving food choices and population diet. Current tax policy proposals include two methods of raising prices of unhealthy products with the aim of reducing purchases of such foods and improving diet quality in the population.
One approach is to tax foods with poor nutrient profiles, such as foods high in saturated fat, sodium or added sugars. An alternative approach is to impose a tax on unhealthy food categories, such as sugary drinks, energy-dense foods or snacks. Inferences about the effects of tax policy rely on assumptions about the effects of food prices on purchases and consumption patterns. The Rudd Center is committed to expanding the knowledge base about the role of food prices in affecting food choices to inform future policy decisions in this area.
For example, our team conducted one of the first systematic literature reviews on the impacts of food prices on consumption.