Tag Archives: sugar

Featured, Featured News, Lifestyle, National, Wellness

Pop consumption falls beyond expectations after soda tax

Leave a comment

As voters consider soda taxes in four cities, a new study finds that some Berkeley neighborhoods slashed sugar-sweetened beverage consumption by more than one-fifth after the Northern California city enacted the nation’s first soda tax.

Berkeley voters in 2014 levied a penny-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugary drinks to try to curb consumption and stem the rising tide of diabetes and obesity.

After the tax took effect in March 2015, residents of at least two neighborhoods reported drinking 21 percent less of all sugar-sweetened beverages and 26 percent less soda than they had the year before, according to the report in the October American Journal of Public Health.

“From a public health perspective, that is a huge impact. That is an intervention that’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen aimed at changing someone’s dietary behavior,” senior author Dr. Kristine Madsen said in a telephone interview.

Madsen, a professor of public health at the University of California at Berkeley, said the drop in sugary drink consumption surpassed her expectations, though it was consistent with consumption declines in low-income neighborhoods in Mexico after it imposed a nationwide tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.

The Berkeley results also pleasantly surprised Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.

“I hadn’t expected the effects to be so dramatic,” she said in an email. “This is substantial evidence that soda taxes work.”

The soda industry has spent millions of dollars defeating taxes on sugary drinks in dozens of U.S. cities. But the tax passed easily — with 76 percent of the vote — in Berkeley. In addition to soda, the measure covers sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, energy drinks like Red Bull and caffeinated drinks like Frappuccino iced coffee. Diet beverages are exempt.

In June, the Philadelphia City Council enacted its own tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax is set to take effect in January, although soda trade groups have sued to try to block the measure.

Meanwhile, voters in Boulder, Colorado and the Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Albany will vote on whether to tax their sugary beverages on Nov. 8.

San Francisco voters also considered a soda tax in 2014, but it failed to garner a two-thirds majority needed for approval.

Public health officials and politicians point to the Berkeley study as proof of the power of an excise tax to wean people off sweetened drinks.

“The study is another tool highlighting how effective a tax on sugary beverages will be on changing the consumption rate,” San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen told Reuters Health.

“Just like tobacco, these are commodities we can live without that are killing us,” she said. Cohen wrote the San Francisco ballot measure.

Researchers surveyed 873 adults in Berkeley and 1,806 adults in nearby San Francisco and Oakland before and a few months after imposition of the soda tax.

Sweetened beverage consumption increased slightly in San Francisco and Oakland at the same time it dropped in Berkeley, the study showed. In Berkeley, water consumption spiked 63 percent, compared to 19 percent in San Francisco and Oakland, after the tax took effect.

The researchers attributed the surge in water consumption to a heat wave. But the American Beverage Association saw it as example of the study’s flaws.

In a statement, Brad Williams, an economist working for the trade group, criticized the research for using “unreliable and imprecise methodology” and producing “implausible” results.

The association’s criticism may hold grains of truth, Nestle said. But she largely dismissed it. “Obviously, the ABA is going to attack the results. That’s rule number one in the playbook: cast doubt on the science,” she said.

Public health experts believe soda helped drive American obesity rates to among the highest in the world. The U.S. spent an estimated $190 billion treating obesity-related conditions in 2012.

Diabetes rates have almost tripled over the past three decades, while sugary beverage consumption doubled.

Featured Lifestyle, Lifestyle, Wellness

Pop or fizzle: Are soda taxes gaining steam?

Leave a comment

A sip of soda will become more expensive next year in Philadelphia, which recently became the second city in the United States to pass a tax on sugary beverages — after Berkeley voters passed one in 2014.

The Philadelphia measure, approved by the City Council in June, could lend momentum to efforts by public health advocates to get similar taxes enacted elsewhere around the nation.

Voters in three Northern California cities — San Francisco, Oakland and Albany — will decide in November whether to approve such taxes. A soda tax initiative in San Francisco in 2014 failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to pass.

Several states also have tried and failed to pass soda taxes. In California, a bill to do so died this spring.

Outside of the United States, Mexico, England and France also tax sugar-laden beverages.

Advocates of taxing these drinks say that they contribute to high rates of obesity and diabetes, and that putting a bigger price tag on them can reduce consumption and improve people’s health. Critics argue the taxes are unpopular and that it is discriminatory to single out one item in the grocery cart.

The American Beverage Association, one of the staunchest opponents of soda taxes, has funded successful opposition campaigns throughout the United States, including in California.

The association has spent $64.6 million since 2009 fighting such initiatives — including more than $9 million just to defeat the proposed San Francisco tax in 2014, according to a report last year by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have also been big contributors to the opposition.

Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for the beverage trade group, said there is no evidence that soda taxes make anyone healthier. “Obesity has been rising … while soft drink consumption has been declining,” she said. “It would defy logic to say that soft drink consumption is driving obesity.”

Overall, soda sales dropped 1.2 percent in 2015, according to Beverage Digest, which tracks the industry, continuing a downward trend.

Kane added that taxing any grocery item is a “slippery slope” that makes other groceries vulnerable to taxation.

To hear more about the campaigns for soda taxes, we spoke with Harold Goldstein, executive director of California-based Public Health Advocates, who has played an active role in some of these efforts. A transcript of the conversation below has been edited for clarity and space.

Q: What are the health and medical effects of drinking too many sugar-sweetened beverages?

It is now proven that sugary beverages are a leading contributor to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. When we consume liquid sugar, the body converts much of that sugar to fat in the liver, causing fatty liver disease. We now have an epidemic in this country of fatty liver disease.

There are studies showing, for example, if you drink two sodas a day for just two weeks, that your unhealthy cholesterol, your LDL cholesterol, will go up 20 percent and that your triglycerides will go up 20 percent. If you drink that amount for six months, the amount of fat in your liver will go up 150 percent. This is a dramatic impact in a short period of time because our bodies are not designed to consume liquid sugar.

Q: How big is the problem of obesity and diabetes in the U.S.?

The obesity and diabetes epidemics are among the most fundamental public health problems facing our country today. They impact every demographic group. At the same time, they are a particular problem in low-income communities and communities of color, in large part because it’s in those communities where there is the least access to healthy food and the least access to opportunities to be physically active.

We know that diabetes rates are going to increase by 80 percent in the next five years, costing the state $15 billion more in direct health care costs. With that kind of money on the table … it is imperative that we invest in diabetes prevention. Whether it is through a soda tax, through the state legislature or state general funds, it is time to establish a major statewide diabetes prevention campaign in California.

Q: A recent report by your organization and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that more than half of Californians have either diabetes or prediabetes. Aside from sugar-sweetened beverages, what else is causing this?

We have created a world that is designed for diabetes. We have fast food outlets on every corner. We have staggering portion sizes of sugary beverages and restaurant meals and everything from bagels to burgers. We have gotten rid of [physical education] in schools. We allow unregulated advertising of unhealthy products to children.

Q: Why target sugary beverages and not other junk food?

A: If you eat a candy bar, it takes hours to digest it. The liquid sugar is just floating sugar molecules and we absorb that sugar in as little as 30 minutes. The research is continuing to show that sugar itself is a particular problem, and perhaps the biggest problem. We know that the body turns sugar into fat. [Soda] is the right place to start. It represents half of the sugar in the food supply, it is the largest source of sugar and our body treats it differently.

Q: In Philadelphia, the mayor argued for the new tax based on the revenue it would bring in, rather than the health risks of soda. Do you think that helped get it approved?

I think different communities are going to support soda taxes for different reasons, in large part based on what the funds are going to be used for. In Berkeley, the revenues go into the general fund. City council members wanted that money to be dedicated to obesity and diabetes prevention efforts, as they have done. That was something clearly important to voters in Berkeley. In Philadelphia, the funds are dedicated to a variety of things, especially pre-K [education] in low-income communities and parks and rec programs. It is important that through this democratic process, residents get to decide how they want to use the revenues raised by such a tax.

Q: The effort to pass a soda tax in California died in committee this spring. Can you explain what the bill would have done and what happened to it?

The bill would have established a 2 penny-per-ounce fee on sugary beverages. As a fee, it would have required that all the revenues raised be dedicated to mitigating harm caused by those products. As has happened now five times in the state legislature, the beverage industry put their corporate might behind their lobbying efforts and successfully killed the bill.

Q: How difficult is it to overcome opposition by the soda industry?

What we are learning is that it’s far easier to enact soda taxes at the local level than at the state level in California. The beverage industry has enormous power in the state Legislature. And getting it passed in California requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature, which is a big hurdle. Other states don’t have that hurdle. There are a number of states that are currently working on it in one way or another.

Q: Critics say that soda taxes won’t reduce obesity rates and give government too much control over consumer choice. What do you think about the argument that this might not be the best way to address diabetes and obesity?

Soda taxes are one way to address the diabetes and obesity epidemic. What has been shown in Berkeley and Mexico, where the tax has now been in effect for quite some time, is that those taxes reduce consumption of sugary beverages, which we know are a leading contributor to the epidemic.

At the same time, those taxes provide funds to pay for much needed programs in communities. Soda taxes aren’t the end-all and be-all of obesity and diabetes prevention. There is a lot more that can and needs to be done to address the epidemic.

Q: As public health advocates like yourself work to reduce access to these beverages, what sort of alternatives are you promoting?

The biggest solution is to encourage and support people to drink water instead of sugar. It is the simplest, easiest change that any of us can make to reduce our chance of getting diabetes. Sixteen teaspoons of sugar in every 20-ounce beverage is way more than our body can handle and still be healthy.

Q: Will there be another try to get a statewide tax in California?

I am sure there will be, with Philadelphia passing theirs. One or more of the soda taxes in the Bay Area are likely to pass. I think that in the coming years, states around the country will also establish soda taxes.

Published from Kaiser Health News under a creative commons license. KHN is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

News, Viral

Cut sugar, limit salt, look for lean: New food guidelines released

Leave a comment

Better cut down on sugar, especially those 16-ounce drinks, and limit your salt. But you might not need to worry quite as much about eggs.

The Obama administration’s latest dietary guidelines, released Thursday, seek to help Americans reduce their likelihood of disease and obesity through a more healthful diet. The newest guidance comes down hard on sugar that’s added to food and drinks but says lean meat is a healthy protein and more eggs may be OK, despite years of advice to the contrary.

Released every five years, the guidelines inform everything from food package labels to subsidized school lunches to your doctor’s advice. And the main message hasn’t changed much over time: Eat your fruits and vegetables. Whole grains and seafood, too. And keep sugar, fats and salt in moderation.

The government says people should figure out what healthy eating style works for them while still hewing to the main recommendations. The Agriculture Department, which released the guidelines along with the Department of Health and Human Services, is also putting out a tweaked version of its healthy “My Plate” icon to include a new slogan: “My Wins.”

“Small changes can add up to big differences,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

LEAN MEAT IS OK

After a significant backlash from the meat industry and Congress, the administration ignored several suggestions from a government advisory panel. That panel had suggested calling for an environmentally friendly diet lower in red and processed meats and de-emphasized lean meats in its list of proteins that are part of a healthful diet.

As in previous years, the government says lean meat is part of a more healthful diet. Buried deeper in the report, though, is language that suggests teenage boys and adult men should reduce meat and eat more vegetables. Government data show that males from 14 to 70 consume more than recommended amounts of meat, eggs and poultry, while women are more in line with advised amounts.

Dr. Richard Wender of the American Cancer Society said the report ignores extensive science on a link between cancer and diet.

“By omitting specific diet recommendations, such as eating less red and processed meat, these guidelines miss a critical and significant opportunity to reduce suffering and death from cancer,” Wender said.

CUT OUT THE SUGARY SODAS

One new recommendation is that added sugar should be no more than 10 percent of daily calories.

That’s about 200 calories a day, around the amount in one 16-ounce sugary drink. The recommendation is part of a larger push to help consumers isolate added sugars from naturally occurring ones like those in fruit and milk.

According to the guidelines, sugary drinks comprise 47 percent of the added sugars that Americans drink and eat every day.

TOO MUCH SALT

Americans also need to lower salt intake, the government says. New figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show around 90 percent of people eat too much. The average person eats 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day, and the guidelines say everyone should lower that to 2,300, or about a teaspoon.

Lowering sodium intake was the major push of the 2010 guidelines, and that document recommended that those most at risk of heart disease, or about half the population, lower their intake to 1,500 mg. The new guidelines delete that lower amount as part of the top recommendations. Later on, though, the report says those with high blood pressure and prehypertension could benefit from a steeper reduction.

Better cut down on sugar, especially those 16-ounce drinks, and limit your salt. But you might not need to worry quite as much about eggs.

The Obama administration’s latest dietary guidelines, released Thursday, seek to help Americans reduce their likelihood of disease and obesity through a more healthful diet. The newest guidance comes down hard on sugar that’s added to food and drinks but says lean meat is a healthy protein and more eggs may be OK, despite years of advice to the contrary.

CHOLESTEROL CONFUSION

After years of doctors saying that Americans shouldn’t eat too many eggs, recommendations for cholesterol have also shifted.

The 2010 guidelines made a key recommendation that Americans consume less than 300 mg a day of dietary cholesterol, or about two small eggs. That recommendation is gone, following increasing medical research showing the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream is more complicated than once thought. Several more recent studies have shown little relationship between heart disease and dietary cholesterol, focusing more on the kinds of fats consumed.

Still, egg lovers aren’t completely off the hook. Discussion of cholesterol deeper into the document says “individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.”

FOOD POLITICS

While the guidelines always have been subject to intense lobbying by food industries, this year’s version set off unprecedented political debate, fueled by Republicans’ claims the administration has gone too far in telling people what to eat.

Congress got involved, successfully encouraging the administration to drop the recommendations based on environmental impact but unsuccessfully proposing to set new standards for the science the guidelines can use.

“It’s clear to me and my colleagues that the administration wisely listened to the science and dismissed the interests of political activists,” said Alabama Rep. Robert Aderholt, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee that oversees Agriculture Department spending.

News, Viral

Soda pop industry pumps $100 million into defeating public health initiatives

Leave a comment

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association have spent at least $106 million to defeat public health initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels since 2009, according to an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The watchdog group says the actual amount spent by the soda industry is much greater, since campaign finance and lobby expenses are not available in 10 out of the 23 jurisdictions that have considered policies aimed at reducing sugar drink consumption.

The soda industry ramped up its federal lobbying spending dramatically in 2009. That year, legislators were exploring new federal excise taxes on soda as one potential funding source for health care reform. Disclosure reports indicate menu labeling, school nutrition and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were also among the industry’s interests. But compared with the industry’s pre-2009 baseline spending, CSPI estimates that the industry spent $52 million at the federal level opposing public health initiatives.

At the state level, the industry spent $16.7 million in Washington state in a successful campaign to overturn at the ballot box a 2-cent per 12-ounce tax passed by the legislature.

Between 2009 and 2015, the beverage industry spent $15.2 million to defeat several measures in New York state, including a proposed state-wide soda tax and then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to cap the size of restaurant soda servings to 16 ounces.

Between 2013 and 2015, the industry spent $2.4 million to unsuccessfully oppose a proposed soda tax in Berkeley, California, and spent $9.2 million in 2014 to successfully oppose a similar tax in San Francisco. The latter proposal had majority support but failed to reach the required two-thirds threshold.

“Like the tobacco industry before it, the soda industry is spending heavily and spending strategically and has mostly been successful at blocking federal, state and local public health measures aimed at reducing soda-related disease,” said CSPI director of health promotion policy Jim O’Hara. “However, it’s unclear whether the industry will be able to preserve its winning streak when it has to fend off a greater number of soda tax or warning label proposals simultaneously.”

Overall, the American Beverage Association spent $64.6 million to fight sugar drink initiatives.

Much of its money was spent at the DC-based public affairs firm Goddard Gunster and the media buying firm GCW Media services.

Soda industry spending is also bipartisan, and flows to vendors with Republican ties — such as Public Opinion Strategies — as well as Democratic ties — such as The Mellman Group, Beneson Strategy Group, and Dewey Square Group.

Screen

‘Saving Mr. Banks’ a spoonful of sugar

Leave a comment

For most scribes who have toiled in the movie industry, portraying Hollywood as a healing paradise is roughly equivalent to regaling a lobster of the soothing properties of a boiling pot of water.

Hollywood has always, and probably will always, chew up authors. From “Sunset Boulevard” to “In a Lonely Place” to “Barton Fink,” we’ve often had the writer’s perspective on the painful life of movie scripting. Now, in Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks,” we have the studio’s.

No one, needless to say, winds up face down in a swimming pool in the Disney version.

“Saving Mr. Banks,” directed by John Lee Hancock (a sure studio hand of inspirational tales like “The Blind Side” and “The Rookie”), is based on the true story of the tug of wills between “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). Finally drawn by Disney’s money and years of entreaties to adapt her books, the extremely particular British writer arrives in mythic 1961 Los Angeles like a dark cloud indignant of sunshine.

She peers warily at “Los Ang-uh-lees,” as she calls it, from the back window of the limo that’s been sent to pick her up. Her chipper driver (Paul Giamatti) is infuriatingly American. She flinches when he calls her home “Inger-land” and, worse, says “no problemo.”

It’s just the start of the unpleasantness for Travers, who recoils at the thought of handing over her very precious characters — “my family,” she says _ to Disney. When she arrives in a hotel room strewn with baskets and stuffed animals, she faces a giant Mickey doll in the corner, telling him he can stay there “until you learn the art of subtlety.”

She doesn’t treat Disney much better, nor her would-be collaborators: writer Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and the songwriting Sherman brothers, Robert (B.J. Novak) and Richard (Jason Schwartzman). She is resolute in keeping sentimentality, trite showmanship or dancing penguins from her tale.

The Disney team are puppy dogs, obedient but pleading with big eyes to be let off the leash. As the mustached Disney, Hanks (well-suited for the part, belying only the slightest hint of Disney’s strong-arm side) absorbs her contempt for his “silly cartoon” with a quick wince. But he’s equally dauntless in the certainty of his mission, a zealot for the fantasy of storytelling. They’re all flummoxed by her demands, like not having red in the film: “I’ve simply gone off the color,” says Travers. 

As these lines, from the script by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, suggest, it’s extremely pleasurable watching Thompson in the role. With pursed lips and folded arms, she’s a force of condescension.

But she’s also a haunted woman. In a flashback that runs intermittently throughout the film, “Saving Mr. Banks” explores the roots of Travers’ fiction in the reality of her upbringing. Her childhood in rural Australia at the start of the 20th century was poor and tragic because of her sick and alcoholic father (Colin Farrell), the Mr. Banks in need of saving.

The background explains the source of Travers’ Poppins and gives “Saving Mr. Banks” something genuine about artists and the drive for storytelling. (Don’t expect straight history here. Travers, for one, didn’t end up a fan of Disney or the “Mary Poppins” movie.) But it also leads it into the very same kind of sap Travers wailed against.

“Saving Mr. Banks,” a Disney movie about a Disney movie (timed for the 50th anniversary of “Mary Poppins”), is a feature film advertisement not just for the Mouse House, but for the Hollywood dream factory. Just as Travers is eventually won over by her Hollywood adversaries, the strong sentimental pull of “Saving Mr. Banks” overwhelms, too. 

Resistance is futile. We’re helpless before Hollywood, done in by the simple, undefeatable power of a little song and dance.

“Saving Mr. Banks,” a Walt Disney Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “thematic elements including some unsettling images.” Running time: 126 minutes. Three stars out of four.

National

American Medical Association opposes lifetime ban on gay men donating blood

Leave a comment

The American Medical Association adopted a policy this week opposing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men.

The AMA policy also expresses support for the use of rational, scientifically based deferral periods that are fairly and consistently applied to blood donors.

“The lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men is discriminatory and not based on sound science,” said AMA board member Dr. William Kobler in a news release. “This new policy urges a federal policy change to ensure blood donation bans or deferrals are applied to donors according to their individual level of risk and are not based on sexual orientation alone.”

The AMA also adopted a new policy regarding HIV prevention.

Recent studies have confirmed that effective antiretroviral therapy can reduce HIV transmission by up to 96 percent. Previously, antiretroviral therapy for infected persons was delayed for years until CD4 cell counts dropped significantly and transmission occurred.

Although new NIH guidelines recommend immediate antiviral treatment, these guideline changes have not been widely publicized to physicians.

New policy adopted by the AMA supports programs to raise physician awareness of early treatment and “treatment as prevention” and the need to link newly positive persons to clinical care and partner services.

Other policies

The AMA also:

• Adopted a policy strongly opposing discrimination based on an individual’s genetic information. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act was intended to protect individuals from genetic discrimination by health insurers and employers, but GINA did not address a number of areas in which genetic discrimination may still occur, and some people are not protected by GINA’s provisions. The newly adopted policy supports legislation that would provide robust and comprehensive protections against genetic discrimination and misuse of genetic information.

• Adopted a policy that encourages companies, laboratories, researchers and providers to publicly share data on genetic variants and the clinical significance of those variants through a system that assures patient and provider privacy.

• Adopted new policy recommending that traditional compounding pharmacies be subject to state board of pharmacy oversight. The AMA also supports FDA oversight and regulation of facilities that compound sterile drug products without receiving a prescription order prior to compounding and introducing these drugs into interstate commerce.

• Adopted a policy that recognizes obesity as a disease requiring a range of medical interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.

“Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” said AMA board member Patrice Harris. “The AMA is committed to improving health outcomes and is working to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, which are often linked to obesity.”

• Adopted a policy supporting a ban of the marketing of high stimulant/caffeine drinks to adolescents under the age of 18.

“Energy drinks contain massive and excessive amounts of caffeine that may lead to a host of health problems in young people, including heart problems, and banning companies from marketing these products to adolescents is a common sense action that we can take to protect the health of American kids,” said AMA board member Alexander Ding.

• Adopted a policy recognizing potential risks of prolonged sitting and encouraging employers, employees and others to make available alternatives to sitting, such as standing workstations and isometric balls.

• Adopted a policy that supports the exemption of sunscreen from over-the-counter medication possession bans in schools and encourages all schools to allow students to possess sunscreen at school without restriction.