Sugar, carbon, and land are things that we move quickly to implement and bring it to more and more externalities.
With sugar I could at most harm myself, not others. A tax on sugar but not on fat would be discrimination of one diet form or even lifestyle over another. I can offset a lot of sugar with a lot of sport myself.
But, it's still significantly better than taxing productive work (the current system), which is why I support it so strongly. In my mind, it's not a question of whether the sugar tax is a great idea, it's a question of whether it's better than current taxes (due to the incentives it fixes). Unless externality taxes can fund the whole budget, we will need to branch out.
I don't like the contrast with fat since fat isn't known to be bad. See studies on olive oil consumption, or see studies on how the keto diet might help with chronic disease. Sugar is bad. Taxing sugar will save lives. I'd say the same for alcohol and cigarettes.
I also view this as somewhat important for a functioning society. Even though sugar isn't an externality per se, having a society full of sick people isn't conducive to its flourishing, and might have pretty bad unintended downstream consequences. If everyone is depressed and sick, might they vote for a populist autocrat, after being unable to put their finger on what exactly is wrong? See Hitler's 10x explosion of popularity one year into the Great Depression. This is a broad view of externalities which I pay mind to.
One problem with taxes on addictive substances is that they have little effect on consumption behavior. A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer, but only very few will smoke less as a result.
Has this been studied? I get that we expect a lot of price inelasticity due to the nature of addiction, but I wonder how true that is.
One study[1] I'm reading now about a natural experiment on cigarette taxes. It worked a bit. There was an immediate decrease of 0.75% after the 25% tax was implemented, and it continued to decrease by 0.02% month-on-month afterwards (although part of that 0.75% decrease might be the existence of untaxed substitutes, and part of that 0.02% monthly decrease might be a global trend).
This[2] seems quite optimistic about taxes' ability to reduce demand. However, the data they share is not a nice natural experiment, so I don't put too much weight into it.
This one[3] is saying demand isn't inelastic at all.
This one[4] on sugar is saying a 10% price increase leads to a 13% reduction in demand.
> A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer
Yes, but an income tax makes workers poorer. I'd rather tax destructive behavior than productive behavior, as long as demand isn't too inelastic, given that we literally have to choose between them in order to raise sufficient revenue for the state. I admit that I should read more studies on exactly how inelastic it is before coming to a conclusion on that, though, but my cursory reading seems to support that it isn't overly inelastic.
> large amounts of saturated fats are known to be unhealthy
I wouldn't mind taxing that as well. I'm aware there's a point at which it becomes a bit too complicated, though. Start simple with sugar, alcohol and tobacco, and add other things like saturated fats based on the weight of evidence and whether it can be done simply and easily.
> In small amounts, sugar can even be healthy, e.g. after exercise.
Yeah. Similar to how alcohol might be healthy for people with heart disease. These are edge cases, and the tax will distort the market for these edge cases. But taxation is always a blunt instrument, and the broad alignment of incentives 99% of the time with a sugar tax is correct, unlike with a property tax (not a land tax) or an income tax where you get a misalignment almost all the time.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...
[2] https://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/publications/en_tfi_mpowe...
[3] https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/31303/v40n4a0....
[4] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
Mostly those being "you cannot accurately predict how taxing will play out."
But "poor or middle class" people choosing $2 soda over $3 orange juice... might choose $3 orange juice over $2 soda that has a $2 tax slapped on it. You cannot argue "they'll just keep buying the same thing when it's taxed all to hell."
(Orange juice probably isn't much better than soda, but that's not the point of my argument.)
Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." Though it does seem that yes - the corn industry, especially HFCS should not be subsidized... the exact opposite of taxing! So repeal those subsidies, and maybe put taxes on HFCS at the industry level (rather than the consumer level). If industry, rather than the government, want to foot the bill for HFCS and sell it at a loss, then at least we've shifted the problem.
> 2 : in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible
I think you know what he meant. I remember having a similar discussion with my dad. He was surprised to learn his peanut butter and bread both had sugar as one of the top ingredients. Sauces in a lot of restaurants have it in high quantities. Even things like beef jerky can have twenty grams of sugar per serving.
How about we first find out what actually causes diabetes. Not what correlates with it, but what really causes it. And then how we can stop that.
You can tax or forbid sugar all you want, but is it gonna stop diabetes? Will people who eat tons of other "empty carbs" really not get diabetes?
I'm not so sure. Instead of restricting peoples lifes, I would much rather opt for giving them opportunities. Such as providing discounts for gyms or other ways of working out.
Now, some people will change their life through incentives and some people won't. The nice thing about a sugar tax is that if the funds are appropriated for health care funding or UBI for low income individuals, then you can provide more of the opportunities you were talking about for people to get healthy (gym discounts, nutrition consults, etc.). The tax is two parts. Disincentivize the purchasing of high sugar content food and fund discounts or incentives that improve health outcomes.
There is no debate that there is a correlation, but that's not a causation.
Also, what is it now, sugar or obesity? Because if it is obesity, then shouldn't we (by your logic) tax everything that leads to obesity and not just sugar?
> People gain weight because they consume too many calories and then eventually overweight people develop diabetes.
But why do they consume too many calories?
There was a post here on HN not long ago that claimed that the micro-nutritions (like minerals) of many vegetables have declined over the years. Maybe that contributes much more to "eating too much" than anything else. That's something to research first, before taxing stuff based on our gutfeeling imho.
No, I'm saying that it is the cause. People consume food that contains sugar. Because the food contains all that added sugar the number of calories in the food is higher than it would otherwise be. This constant caloric surplus is what leads to obesity, which in turn leads to diabetes. (at least of the non-genetic variety)
> Also, what is it now, sugar or obesity? Because if it is obesity, then shouldn't we (by your logic) tax everything that leads to obesity and not just sugar?
The added sugar is why the food contains so many calories. If you remove the sugar you remove the additional calories. You don't need to tax everything. Just the sugar.
> But why do they consume too many calories?
Because people eat until they are satiated and unfortunately sugar does not make you feel full, but it does add a lot of calories; therefore, people end up consuming more calories than they should, since they are always eating until they are full.
> There was a post here on HN not long ago that claimed that the micro-nutritions (like minerals) of many vegetables have declined over the years. Maybe that contributes much more to "eating too much" than anything else. That's something to research first, before taxing stuff based on our gutfeeling imho.
This is not a gut feeling. Sugar is a high caloric food and the consumption of too much of it causes spikes in insulin that can lead to insulin resistance that in turn causes the pancreas to produce more insulin. High levels of insulin in the body cause more fat to be stored in cells and prevents the breakdown of fat. If we can deter people from consuming lots of sugar, then you can prevent this whole process from starting.
Well, then I disagree. There's people getting no diabetes even though eating a lot of sugar and I bet there's also a lot of people getting or having diabetes without eating any sugar.
> This constant caloric surplus is what leads to obesity
I don't think that's how it works. Point in case: if I eat two same things, once having sugar, the other one not, then I feel full quicker and longer by the one that contains sugar. That does not mean that sugar is healthy, I believe it's the opposite, but you can't just say that sugar is _the_ thing that leads to obesity. If anything, it is a surplus of calories in general, but that can happen without sugar and it also doesn't explain how it even comes to this surplus.
To me it honestly feels as if you are just trying to make your life easy by finding an "easy" solution.
> The added sugar is why the food contains so many calories. If you remove the sugar you remove the additional calories. You don't need to tax everything. Just the sugar.
Replace sugar with fat and the same is true, no? So tax added fat as well? How about protein then?
> Because people eat until they are satiated and unfortunately sugar does not make you feel full
Oh, as I said, it definitely makes _me_ feel full though. Maybe you meant "doesn't make you feel as full as other things"? Well then I might agree, but here it becomes complicated - if you are actually consequent, you would not tax sugar, but things that "make you not feel as full", don't you agree?
> This is not a gut feeling. Sugar is a high caloric food and the consumption of too much of it causes spikes in insulin that can lead to insulin resistance that in turn causes the pancreas to produce more insulin
You just said something very important: "too much". But what is too much? That question can't even be answered in general, because, for example, it is different for someone lying on their couch the whole day and someone doing extreme sports.
The only people getting diabetes without eating sugar are the ones that are genetically predisposed to it. (i.e. Type 1 Diabetes) We are not talking about those people. We are talking about the people who get diabetes because of insulin resistance due to being obese (Type 2 Diabetes). Sure there are lots of foods that don't contain sugar like chicken breasts, vegetables, legumes, etc; however, these are not the foods people are eating that is causing them to become obese. It's really hard to overeat those kinds of foods only, because you will become full and stop eating before you have consumed way too many calories.
> I don't think that's how it works.
I mean you can think anything you want, but you thinking something is not going to change the basic science. People can only gain weight by consuming more calories than they use. The majority of people are losing most of their calories by just breathing every day. Even if they introduce regular exercise they won't significantly change the calories out number, so the only choice left is to shrink the calories in number and the easiest way to do that is remove foods from your diet that contain a lot less added sugar.
> If anything, it is a surplus of calories in general, but that can happen without sugar and it also doesn't explain how it even comes to this surplus.
> To me it honestly feels as if you are just trying to make your life easy by finding an "easy" solution.
Sure, in principle obesity can happen with any food or additive, but in practice the leading contributor is sugar. You don't need to believe me you can DYOR on this subject. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959843/) There are other foods that should be limited besides sugar, but the way you start tackling a problem like obesity/diabetes is eliminate the biggest contributors first and then work your way down.
> Replace sugar with fat and the same is true, no? So tax added fat as well? How about protein then?
In fact, the food industry did the opposite. They replaced all the added fat with sugar and that is why there is so much sugar in everything now. The other thing though we haven't talked about is the fact that foods with sugar tend to have a high glycemic index. A high GI value causes blood sugar levels and insulin to increase quickly, which in turn causes insulin to be overproduced and more fat to be stored. In effect, the sugar that replaced fat turned out to be worse, because of biochemical processes within the human body. Perhaps if the industry starts adding lots of fat back into food if sugar was eliminated, then there would need to be a fat tax. You'd get no argument from me there, but it is not such a big problem currently. As for protein, try and consume your daily caloric intake just eating chicken breasts some time. You'll probably throw up before you get there.
> Maybe you meant "doesn't make you feel as full as other things"? Well then I might agree, but here it becomes complicated - if you are actually consequent, you would not tax sugar, but things that "make you not feel as full", don't you agree?
No, it's not about taxing something that doesn't make you feel full. It's about taxing the biggest contributor that is adding lots of excess calories into your diet and effecting the chemical processes in your body to store more fat.
> You just said something very important: "too much". But what is too much? That question can't even be answered in general, because, for example, it is different for someone lying on their couch the whole day and someone doing extreme sports.
While the threshold for how much sugar can be consumed safely may vary from person to person, it is quite obvious that on the aggregate the majority of people in the world are consuming way more than they should. The AHA recommends an added sugar limit of no more than 36 grams per day for men. (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/a...) That means if you consume one can of regular coke you have already exceeded your limit for the day. You set public policy and pass laws based on the population at large and most people are not doing extreme sports. Also, for those that are doing extreme sports sugar consumption is best targeted pre-workout or during the workout for a quick boost of energy. They will still though get a lot of their glucose intake from natural sources of sugar and so even athletes should limit the amount of added sugar they consume.
> It is important to not single out sugars as the enemy to be avoided at all costs. Sugars are a naturally-occurring, integral component of many unprocessed foods.
> A positive correlation between sugar consumption and obesity is only apparent when sugar is overconsumed, which is the topic of this review. It is worth recapitulating that obesity is a multifactorial disease. This review focuses on the association between sugar consumption trends and obesity prevalence. However, for a holistic understanding of the causes of obesity, we must also take into account such factors as physical activity, economic status, and consumption of other macronutrients, i.e. fat, and micronutrients, among others.
Yeah, I don't think we will come to an agreement here.
Seems you really want to do something against obesity and you are ready to accept quite a lot of collateral damage by punishing people with extra tax who don't need to be protected/helped at all.
I on the other hand believe that the sugar itself is a minor problem, the bigger problem is the lack of physical activity and micro-nutritients. There is some overlap here, because added sugar has zero good micro-nutritients, but I personally believe that low-carb is great not because of the lack of carbs but because it's easier to get your body satisfied with everything besides calories when eating ingredients rich in fat and protein than those rich in carbs - but even here there are exceptions (such as pumpkin).
But that's my personal assessment and as your study says, we don't know enough yet how much impact the different factors really have, so no one really knows. However, increasing bureaucracy based on not well understood concepts is probably a fairly bad idea.
Oh, one more thing:
> It's about taxing the biggest contributor that is adding lots of excess calories into your diet
Sorry that doesn't make any sense. If I ate 2500 calories today and 500 of them were "excess" (because daily I burn only 2000), then which of the 2500 are now your so-called "excess calories"?
Actually, quite the opposite. People who don't consume foods with lots of added sugar are already healthier and wouldn't end up paying a lot more for their food. The people who are consuming lots of added sugar are contributing to the growing problem of chronic diabetes. Right now we are all being punished with higher health insurance premiums and reduced benefits, because more and more people are having to go on insulin, alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, metformin, etc. You know how you reduce health care costs and help people? You prevent disease from starting in the first place, but that means instituting programs and incentives that actually change people's behavior. If you have a sugar tax whose funds go into programs to encourage healthy eating, working out, etc., then that is a net win for society, since over time less and less people will develop type 2 diabetes and other illnesses caused by obesity. This is not a new concept and has been successful before. Most notably in the form of cigarette taxes. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228562/)
> I on the other hand believe that the sugar itself is a minor problem, the bigger problem is the lack of physical activity and micro-nutritients.(sic)
Increasing physical activity and micro-nutrients are great goals, but do not play a large part in the obesity epidemic. The over-consumption of high caloric food is the root cause. It takes a lot of time to lose weight through physical activity. Run 30 minutes on treadmill and maybe you will lose 300 calories? That probably won't even offset half of many people's lunch calories. Again, the majority of calories are lost through just breathing out. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM-ySWyID9o) It's a much easier and more effective strategy to reduce the amount of calories coming in. That's why intermittent fasting has become so popular.
> But that's my personal assessment and as your study says, we don't know enough yet how much impact the different factors really have, so no one really knows. However, increasing bureaucracy based on not well understood concepts is probably a fairly bad idea.
Just because we don't fully understand the role of all the biochemical processes involved in insulin resistance, obesity, etc. doesn't mean we don't understand the broader causes and the changes that should be made to diets to improve health outcomes. Your argument is similar to saying just because we don't understand all the mechanisms that cause the earth to heat up we shouldn't try and reduce CO2 emissions. It's nonsensical.
> Sorry that doesn't make any sense. If I ate 2500 calories today and 500 of them were "excess" (because daily I burn only 2000), then which of the 2500 are now your so-called "excess calories"?
Sure, it does. As you yourself stated "added sugar has zero good micro-nutrients", by definition these are excess calories that you don't need. If we need to reduce people's consumption of calories then the first to go should be the ones that aren't providing any benefit.
Not "the opposite". Exactly as I said: a lot of people would end up paying more, for no health benefit.
> Increasing physical activity and micro-nutrients are great goals, but do not play a large part in the obesity epidemic.
That is merely your own opinion, but you seem to think that this is a fact. If you are so sure, I'm sure you have some good sources for that? I mean, the first study you linked actually doesn't speak in your favor.
> Sure, it does. As you yourself stated "added sugar has zero good micro-nutrients", by definition these are excess calories that you don't need.
Wait what? That's not how "excess" is commonly defined. Here's how this term is usually used:
> When you eat more calories than you need, your body stores the extra calories as body fat. Even a fat-free food can have a lot of calories. Excess calories in any form can be stored as body fat. (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/4182-fat-and-...)
or
> “Excess calories per day” is simply an arbitrary measure over an arbitrary unit of time to better calculate and plan your diet and calorie deficit/surplus (depending on your goals). (https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/07/27/how-long-does-...)
So this term is used simply for surplus calories. Sure, sugars can be surplus calories, but if I eat 2500kcal of protein in a day and my body only burns 2000kcal, then 500 of these are excess calories. But I could have left out 500 of any of these 2500kcal to avoid excess calories. So my point still stands.
No, what happens is this money eventually flows back in terms of lower healthcare costs overall.
> That is merely your own opinion, but you seem to think that this is a fact. If you are so sure, I'm sure you have some good sources for that? I mean, the first study you linked actually doesn't speak in your favor.
It actually did. Unfortunately, you can only lead a horse to water.
> So this term is used simply for surplus calories. Sure, sugars can be surplus calories, but if I eat 2500kcal of protein in a day and my body only burns 2000kcal, then 500 of these are excess calories. But I could have left out 500 of any of these 2500kcal to avoid excess calories. So my point still stands.
I'm glad we agree sugar can be considered surplus calories. The point is when we are trying to reduce people's overall number of calories from their diet we could eliminate any calories, but we should try and eliminate the ones that don't provide any benefit and in fact have negative consequences first.
Only if that really happens - just because obesity goes down doesn't mean that we experience cost savings. People might just live longer then and get other sicknesses instead, require more pension etc - who knows how it plays out. Can you backup your claim?
And even then, there might be better solutions that lower the healthcore costs as much or more, without imposing a partially unfair tax.
> It actually did. Unfortunately, you can only lead a horse to water.
Lol, I already quoted the relevant parts from your study and you just ignored it.
> The point is when we are trying to reduce people's overall number of calories from their diet we could eliminate any calories, but we should try and eliminate the ones that don't provide any benefit and in fact have negative consequences first.
As I already said, that is your personal opinion and I believe different. I suspect physical activity, micro-nutritions (where sugar is part of, but really only part) and also gut-bacteria and stress-levels are major factors. Sugar is probably not the easiest thing to realistically fix and introduces a lot of collateral damage if you generally tax sugars.
But I know you believe different for some reason and I think a discussion is pointless. I would be interested to see a study (and a quote from there) that really says "sugars are the (main) cause and here is why", but I doubt you can show my something, because it most likely just doesn't exist.
For example, Scotland is one of the few countries in the world where Coca-Cola is not the most popular fizzy drink. Irn Bru is.
Following the sugar tax, Irn Bru changed the recipe to use alternative sweeteners.
Some people complained, and there is an original version, but it is far more common to see the sugar free version used.
In this case, the tax works.
Trouble is that too few people understand this and therefore politicians present taxes as fair/unfair