Philly’s soda tax had an impact on health in the city, research shows

When University of Pennsylvania researcher Christina Roberto started studying Philadelphia’s soda tax, she wasn’t convinced she would experience many health consequences.

“We know that it is very difficult to shift and maintain someone’s weight, and it is a tall order to require a policy like this to produce a health impact,” she said.

Roberto’s study indeed shows published in The Lancetfound that the average BMI, a measure of a person’s body fat based on their height and weight, continues to increase in Philadelphia.

But compared to control groups outside the city, BMI in Philadelphia increases more slowly. The study found “limited evidence” that BMIs and obesity prevalence declined in the city three years after the implementation of the 2017 tax, the authors wrote.

Often, drinking sugary drinks is linked to weight gain, obesity and other conditions such as diabetes. Philadelphia’s soda tax, the first in a major U.S. city, aims to curb sales by adding 1.5 cents per ounce to distributors’ costs for soft drinks, energy drinks, mixers and other sugary drinks. The higher costs are largely passed on to consumers, who have to pay higher prices.

The tax, which goes into the city’s general fund, partially funds preschool education and improvements to parks and community centers.

BMI alone is often not a good predictor of an individual’s health, and people’s body shapes and compositions can vary depending on their race, gender and age, according to the American Medical Association. The AMA recommends that physicians working with individual patients use BMI in addition to other measurements to look at weight and body fat and determine a course of treatment.

But to examine the health of large populations, the BMI measurement is generally considered a more accurate data point, the AMA and other scientists said. BMI is “probably the best thing we can do,” Iliya Gutin, then a program officer at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, told the New York Times last year, when the AMA advised doctors not to use BMI just to assess a patient’s health. health.

Although the impact of the soda tax on the average BMI in Philadelphia is small, it is significant for researchers. “We’re not seeing massive reductions. It’s the fact that we’re seeing reductions at all” that is surprising, Roberto said.

More research into the impact of the soft drink tax

Philadelphia’s soda tax was controversial when it was introduced in 2017, and the American Beverage Association has spent millions lobbying against it. Opponents said the tax would hurt local businesses and customers and would not achieve public health goals.

But the uproar has subsided over the years, with the drinks industry instead focusing on preventing the introduction of similar taxes elsewhere, and academic research is now beginning to examine the tax’s impact.

Another study published in JAMA Health Forum found that Philadelphia had seen some of the largest declines in sugary drink sales among cities that implemented similar taxes. Turnover here fell by almost half in the years after the tax was introduced.

Roberto’s study looked at electronic medical records from Penn Medicine, comparing Philadelphia’s Penn patients with the city’s counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which did not implement liquor taxes.

More research is needed on how liquor taxes affect health, Roberto said, but she is encouraged by research showing similar benefits in other cities and countries that have implemented taxes.

“If you do one study, it’s hard to be sure you’re going to get the definitive answer,” she said. “But I’m becoming increasingly confident that taxes can actually improve health.”

‘A clear no-brainer’

Even small improvements in BMI — or just a decline in soda sales and consumption — indicate the tax’s effectiveness, Roberto said.

“To me, this policy is a clear no-brainer. We know from a lot of data that sugary drinks are not good for our health, and we tax other things, like tobacco, that we know are not good for our health,” said them. “Even if we didn’t see a BMI effect, getting people to drink fewer sugary drinks is a good thing.”

And because the tax funds pre-K programs — and good education is another good predictor of overall health — it could impact public health in other ways, Roberto noted.

Roberto said she is hopeful the findings in Philadelphia will influence other cities considering implementing a liquor tax.

“Philly can serve as an example with the more data we collect. You could get more cities and states to do this, and that could improve the health of Americans across the country,” she said.

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