AP, others: Fighting obesity a penny at a time
The AP reports on Yahoo news that some medical researchers and economists are calling for a penny tax on every ounce of sugary sodas or other sweetened drinks sold. The call comes in an article published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The aim would be to slim down Americans a bit, or at least slow the troubling expansion of their waistlines.
The AP ties its story to the release of the Baucus health care plan in the Senate, which rejected a tax on soda.
The immediate question here is: Despite the seeming logic of the proposal, is there any evidence that it will work?
AP medical writer Mike Stobbe quotes one of the researchers saying that the tax could lead to a yearly two-pound weight loss for soda drinkers. The American Beverage Association says it won’t work.
Who’s right?
Stobbe might have told us a bit about the evidence for the weight-loss claim, or any evidence supporting the beverage makers, but he didn’t. So we’re left with a slightly frustrating story with two opposed points of view and no way to evaluate the claims on either side. A bit more detail on the study might have helped. A more rigorous questioning of the soda makers could have helped, too.
Lisa Baertlein of Reuters coincidentally reports that a California lawmaker is going to hold hearings on a soda tax, and adds that a study at the University of California, Los Angeles has found that nearly two-thirds of kids 12-17 drink at least one sugar-sweetened drink every day. Reuters reminds us that the American Heart Association has come out against sugar-sweetened drinks, and that obesity accounts for 10 percent of healthcare spending in the U.S. But like the AP, Baertlein fails to tell us anything about the evidence showing that these drinks are–or are not–harmful.
William Neuman of The New York Times does a little better, plucking from the New England Journal study the finding that for every 10 percent rise in the price of soda, consumption declines 8 to 10 percent. His report of the reaction by soft-drink makes offers no contrary evidence, and we are left to wonder whether they have any.
The lesson here is this: When two groups disagree, it’s important to give readers some help in understanding who is making the stronger claim. The alternative is to leave them dangling, something we can’t afford when we’re losing them daily.
- Paul Raeburn
