1) The taxed items are based on solid, reconciled science rather than best-guess over-extrapolation like we did to fat and cholesterol.

2) Similarly, if and when the consensus shifts, there is a processs to ensure that thes taxes are promptly adjusted.

3) The taxes are diverted, auditably, to the specific maladies the products cause, and rebates against future tax increases if and when they turn out to be too much.

4) People are allowed to be credited the value of the tax paid if they can demonstrate their use of the good is responsible -- e.g. You collect your receipts, you demonstrate you're a healthy athlete, you get the sugar tax back. Show a health liver and clean record, get your alcohol tax back.

3b) (Implication of 3 above) If it turns out e.g. tobacco is saving on health care costs, by causing death before really expensive treatments are given, it starts getting a subsidy from health care revenues.

Measures that don't meet the above tend to come off as "stuff we wanted to do for other reasons and this is an easy target".

The reality is that obesity is the cause of all of these food related diseases. Playing politics with which foods get taxed and which do not doesn't strike me as a winning game and will likely evolve into a battleground of special interest groups attempting to get their competition taxed.