Soft drink taxes don’t just affect sales. They help change people’s minds.

It wasn’t that long ago that cigarettes and soda were a grocery store vice, glorified in movies and marketed to, well, everyone.

Then lawmakers and voters raised taxes on cigarettes, and millions of dollars went to public education campaigns about the harms of smoking. Decades of reporting have shown how addictive and dangerous cigarettes were and the enormous steps companies took to hide the risks and hook more users. The result: a radical shift in social norms that made it less acceptable to smoke and pushed cigarette use to historic lows, especially among minors.

New research from UC Berkeley suggests that sugar-sweetened beverages may be on a similar path.

The city of Berkeley’s first soda tax a decade ago, along with more recent tax increases in the Bay Area on sugar-sweetened beverages, have not only led to a decline in sales. They are also associated with significant changes in social norms and health beliefs about sweet drinks, says Kristine A. Madsen, professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and senior author of a paper published November 25 in the news BMC Public Health.

In just a few years, taxes, coupled with significant media attention, have had a significant impact on the public’s overall perception of sugar-sweetened beverages, including soft drinks, some juices and sports drinks. Such a shift in the informal rules around how people think and act could have major implications for public health efforts more broadly, Madsen said.

“Social norms are very powerful. The significant shift we’ve seen in the way people think about sugary drinks shows what more we could do,” Madsen said. “We could reimagine a healthier food system. It starts with people thinking, ‘Why drink so much soda?’ But what if we also said, ‘Why isn’t most of the food in our supermarkets food that makes us healthy? ?” “

Madsen and colleagues from UC San Francisco and UC Davis analyzed surveys of 9,128 people living in lower-income neighborhoods in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and Richmond. Using data from 2016 to 2019 and 2021, they studied year-over-year trends in people’s perceptions of sugar-sweetened beverages.

They wanted to understand how the Bay Area’s four taxes might have affected social norms around sugary drinks — the unwritten and often unspoken rules that influence the food and drinks we buy, the clothes we wear and the habits we adopt. the dining table. Although social norms are not visible, they are incredibly powerful forces on our actions and behaviors; just ask anyone who has purchased something after an influencer promoted it on TikTok or Instagram.

Researchers asked questions about how often people thought their neighbors drank soft drinks, sports drinks and fruity drinks. Participants also rated how healthy different drinks were, which reflected their own attitudes toward the drinks.

The researchers found a 28% decrease in the social acceptability of drinking sugar-sweetened beverages.

In Oakland, positive perceptions of sports drink consumption among peers decreased after the tax increase, compared to other cities. Similarly, in San Francisco, attitudes toward the healthfulness of sugar-sweetened fruit drinks also declined.

In other words, people believed that their neighbors weren’t drinking as many sugar-sweetened beverages, which affected their own interest in consuming soda, juices and sports drinks.

“What it means when social norms change is that people say, ‘Gee, I guess we don’t drink soda.’ That’s just not what we do. Not that much. Not all the time,” Madsen said. “And that’s an amazing change in mindset.”

The research is the latest from UC Berkeley and examines how consumption patterns have changed in the decade since Berkeley implemented the nation’s first soda tax. A 2016 study found a decrease in soda consumption and an increase in the number of people turning to water. Research from 2019 documented a sharp decline in the number of people turning to sugar-sweetened beverages. And earlier this year, Berkeley researchers documented that purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages dropped dramatically and steadily in five major U.S. cities after taxes were implemented.

The cents-per-ounce beverage tax, which is levied on the distributors of sugary drinks – who ultimately pass on those costs of doing business with consumers – is an important means of communicating with the public about health, Madsen said. Researchers agreed more than 700 media stories about taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages during the study period. That level of coverage was likely an important factor in driving public awareness and standards.

It’s also something Madsen said future public health interventions must take into account. It was part of progress made in reducing cigarette smoking and appears to work with sugary drinks. And it is precisely those interventions that can lead to individual action.

“If we change our behavior, the environment follows,” says Madsen. “While policy really matters and is incredibly important, we as individuals must advocate for a healthier food system.”