To Lower Australia’s Rising Obesity Rates, Tax Soft Drinks

To battle Australia's rising obesity rates, American psychologist Kelly Brownell suggested a tax on soft drinks at the 46^th Australian Psychological Association's yearly conference on Wednesday.

He favors a one penny tax per ounce on beverages that have added sugar. Twenty U.S. cities and states are considering her proposal, but have not passed laws.

Mr Brownell estimated that by taxing soft drinks, consumption would go down by 10 to 23 per cent and health care cost arising from ailments linked with excessive intake of sugar such as obesity and diabetes would go down by $50 billion.

He compared taxing sugary beverages to taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

"We have seen how effective tobacco taxes have been in reducing rates of smoking, so there is no reason to believe such taxes wouldn't be as effective in reducing the consumption of high sugar and fat foods," Xinhua quoted Mr Brownell, who is the director for Food Policy and Obesity of Yale University's Rudd Center.

"A soft drink tax is a good place to start," Mr Brownell said.

He attributed popularity of soft drinks to human nature to eat what is readily available, cost the least and heavily marketed.

"Food companies know that people have trouble eating reasonable amounts of foods engineered to taste so good, so they load food with things that boost profits but contribute to ill health, such as sugar, fat and salt," The Canberra Times quoted Mr Brownell.

Obesity rates in Australia have doubled in the past two decades, while over 17 million Australians considered obese or overweight.

Mr Brownell's proposal could be considered timely as Australia ends a two-day tax forum on Wednesday.

While fruit juices are considered healthier alternatives to soft drinks, a recent study raised the alarm that frequent fruit juice drinkers ran the risk of colon cancer because of the high sugar content of the popular beverage.