Kaiser Permanente released results of a study on the impact of a soda tax on youth in four Bay Area Cities.
According to the study, researchers studied more than 390,000 children and teens (aged 2 to 19) who were Kaiser Permanente members between 2009 and 2020. They compared 4 cities with sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes — Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco — with 40 California cities without SSB taxes.
They found youth in the cities with SSB taxes had an overall 1.64 percentage point lower average BMI percentile after tax approval. BMI percentile is a calculation that takes into account a child’s weight and height, compared with others of their age and sex.
“These findings show us there is a way to have a positive impact on children’s health,” said the study’s lead author Deborah Young, PhD, MBA, director of the Division of Behavioral Research at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation. “At the same time, additional research is needed to determine if the tax resulted in reduced purchases and consumption by youth or if the additional programs from the increased revenue were responsible for the results we found.”
During the time period of the study, about 16% of U.S. youth were overweight and 19.3% were obese.
Other Tidbits:
- There was a stronger association in children under 12, boys, and Asian and white youth.
- Researchers did not observe health-related benefits among Black youth or those living in high-poverty neighborhoods.
- Berkeley was the first U.S. city to levy an SSB tax in 2015. The 4 Bay Area cities in this study approved a penny-per-ounce excise tax onto sugar-sweetened beverage distributors, so that a 12-ounce soda would cost an additional 12 cents
More info
- To read the study, click here
- Source – Kaiser Blog: Soda tax associated with drop in children’s weight
