No Health Benefit Seen from Small Soda Taxes

Duh.

Taxes of a few percent on sugary drinks are unlikely to reduce consumption or improve children's health noticeably, researchers found.

Health, diet, lifestyle and demographic data from a large national cohort of schoolchildren indicated that each 1% increment in so-called soda taxes reduced kids' mean body mass index (BMI) values by a nonsignificant 0.013 points, according to Roland Sturm, PhD, of RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., and colleagues.

Effects on drink consumption overall and in school were also barely detectable.

"Small taxes in the range of existing differentials are unlikely to have visible effects at the population level," the researchers wrote online in Health Affairs.

But Sturm told MedPage Today in a telephone interview that heftier taxes -- such as an 18% levy proposed in 2008 in New York state, or a two-cents-per-ounce tax suggested last month by Pittsburgh's mayor -- could have a much more significant effect.

The solution is to punish the rest of us for the caloric irresponsibility of the fat.

F**k you.

Fight back.