Legal Strategies in Childhood Obesity Prevention Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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5 Using Regulations and Taxes to Prevent Obesity
5 Using Regulations and Taxes to Prevent Obesity
Pages 33-40
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From page 33... ...
Regulations on the sale and advertising of foods and beverages and taxes on particular foods and beverages have the potential to promote healthy eating. Two speakers at the workshop examined these broad approaches to childhood obesity prevention.
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From page 34... ...
. More than 80 percent of the food promoted was found to be unhealthy, and over the 3 years of the study, the nutritional quality of the promoted foods declined, despite pledges made by the food and beverage industries as part of the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (described in Chapter 4)
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From page 35... ...
The Supreme Court struck down the first two advertising restrictions, ruling that they were unconstitutional under the legal standard applied to commercial speech restriction, called the Central Hudson test.1 However, the Supreme Court upheld the ban on self-service displays of tobacco. This regulation was analyzed under a different standard, known as the O'Brien test, which is the test for expressive conduct.2 The lesson learned from this case, said Pomeranz, "is that regulating conduct -- and, in this context, sales practices -- is achievable, and [often]
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From page 36... ...
Food samples to minors could be banned. Pomeranz observed that practices that make unhealthy foods attractive to children not only affect public health and nutrition, but also raise safety
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Lisa Powell, senior research scientist, Institute for Health Research and Policy, and research professor, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, described her research on the effects of taxes on food consumption and some of the policy implications of that research. Using a variety of national data sets, Powell and her colleagues have been examining the associations among state-level soda taxes, consumption, and weight outcomes.
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From page 38... ...
With respect to weight, higher soda taxes had a small positive effect on the change in body mass index from third to fifth grade, but taxes had a stronger positive effect on children who were at risk of becoming overweight. Powell recounted how, in a simulation of the effects of an 18 percent sales tax using these data, she and her colleagues found that such an increase would correspond to about a 20 percent reduction in excess weight gain from third to fifth grade.
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From page 39... ...
Food taxes generally have not been introduced with the aim of modifying consumption behavior as has been the case in other public health areas such as tobacco use, Powell noted. Where taxes have been imposed on selected categories of foods, such as soft drinks, candy, and snacks in grocery stores and vending machines, the tax rates have been quite low.
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From page 40... ...
40 LEGAL STRATEGIES IN CHILDHOOD OBESITY PREVENTION more heavily regulated probably has to do more with political than legal considerations, she said. Pomeranz also addressed a question about the incentives for restaurants to offer smaller portion sizes, not just different types or categories of food.
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