Overview

In a policy statement in Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Heart Association (AHA) called for excise taxes on sodas and other sugary drinks, and discussed, but did not directly endorse, making sugary drinks ineligible for purchase through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

AHA and AAP noted that U.S. children and adolescents consume 17 percent of their calories from added sugars, nearly half of which are in sugary drinks, far above the recommended added sugars cap of 10 percent of calories. The groups said added sugars, especially when consumed in sugary drinks, contribute to obesity, dental decay, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and all-cause mortality.

 

 The groups’ public policy recommendations include:

  1. Local, state or national officials should consider “approaches that increase the price of sugary drinks, such as an excise tax,” with part of the revenues going to “reducing health and socioeconomic disparities.”
  2. Governments should “support efforts to decrease sugar drink marketing to children and adolescents,” such as eliminating the tax deductibility of such marketing campaigns.
  3. Federal nutrition programs should “discourage consumption of sugary drinks,” which could include ending sugary drink purchases through SNAP, though the authors cited downsides of such a move, saying that there is a “clear need to evaluate such a policy and gain public support before its implementation.”
  4. Children, adolescents and their families should have access to nutrition informationon labels, menus and advertisements. A front-of-pack warning label “could serve to further empower families …” though the paper notes potential free-speech issues.
  5. Policies to make healthy beverages the default should be implemented, such as California’s 2018 law to make water or milk the default kids’ menu choices.
  6. Hospitals should “limit or disincentivize purchase of sugary drinks.”

 

Links

The joint AHA-AAP press release is available here.

The full policy statement can be found here.