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Will tax on sugary drinks make us healthier or just poorer?
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In an effort to curb consumption, Philadelphia will levy a new tax on sugary and artificially sweetened drinks. But will the tax make people healthier or just poorer? - photo by Jennifer Graham
If the beverage tastes sweet and comes in a can or a bottle, it will cost more in Philadelphia come January when a new tax on sugary and artificially sweetened drinks goes into effect.

The so-called soda tax is 1.5 cents per ounce and will affect everything from Diet Coke to Gatorade to a Starbucks Frappuccino anything bottled, canned or from a fountain with either sugar or artificial sweetener added, save for a few exceptions, Philly.com reported.

One of those exceptions is fruit juice, unless the beverage contains less than 50 percent juice.

The tax is on distributors, not consumers, but analysts say consumers will be picking up the tab which will amount to 18 cents for a 12-ounce can, $1 for a two-liter container, and $2.16 for a 12-pack. That is, assuming the tax holds up in court.

The beverage industry has promised to fight a "regressive tax that unfairly singles out beverages, including low- and no-calorie choices," and it has prevailed elsewhere. Similar measures have been defeated in New York City, San Francisco and Massachusetts.

But now that the Philadelphia City Council has passed a measure that NPR's Allison Aubrey called historic, other cities could follow, and they will be cheered by health officials who have been trying to curb consumption of beverages with little to no nutritional value, while at the same time, trying to get Americans to cut down on sugar.

The dietary guidelines released in January said added sugars should not exceed 10 percent of the total calories a person consumes.

Most Americans consume more than twice the recommended amount, and soft drinks represent a lot of that sugar, even though sales have declined for the past decade and are at a 30-year low, according to Fortune magazine.

The industry has been throttled by the popularity of bottled water, as well as studies that say frequent consumption of diet sodas can raise the risk of diabetes, metabolic syndrome and heart disease. (Bizarrely, diet sodas even have been linked to long-term weight gain.)

Still 17 percent of us pop the top on what the Center for Science in the Public Interest calls "liquid candy" at least once a day. And when you count not just soft drinks, but other drinks with added sugars to include sports drinks, energy drinks, fruit drinks and sweetened tea more than half of us have at least one every day, according to the CDC.

So a tax on sugary and artificially sweetened beverages stands to bring in a lot of new tax dollars for Philadelphia more than $400 million is projected over the next five years, money that will go toward pre-K education and city parks. That's the reason the City Council enacted the tax, not concern for the citizenry's health.

But there is evidence that improved health may be a side effect.

After Mexico enacted a soda tax in January of 2014, consumption had dropped 12 percent by December, NPR said. Even discussion about a soda tax seems to reduce intake, too.

After a prolonged debate on a soda tax that ultimately fizzled, the number of Vermont residents who said they drank sugary drinks fell from nearly 50 percent to 18.9 percent, Politico reported.
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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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