The soda tax battles in Berkeley and San Francisco, Calif., have been in the news in recent weeks.  In an op-ed by Baylen Linnekin, executive director of Keep Food Legal and professor at George Mason University Law School, voters are reminded that soda taxes do not work to improve public health.  As he states, if our goal is to fight obesity, a soda tax is the wrong approach:

“…studies show that taxes like those proposed in California simply won’t work. A 2010 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal, revealed that taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks won’t impact the weight of those in higher- or lower-income brackets, and would have only a negligible impact on the weight of those in the middle class.”

Our industry is committed to meaningful solutions in the fight against obesity.  To read Linnekin’s piece click here.