Soda Tax, Food Policy and Politics

That Kelly Brownell is at again.

Brownell, a professor of psychology at Yale University and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, has written much about what he thinks the government should do to cinch in America's ever-widening waistlines. Co-author of the 2004 book Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It, Brownell is now proposing a tax on beverages containing sugar and high fructose corn syrup, from sodas to sports drinks, as a means of both cutting demand and consumption and raising revenue (ideally to be used to promote consumption of healthful foods currently being displaced by soft drinks and the like).

Brownell has considered and countered likely points of opposition -- including the arguments that the government shouldn't meddle in the free market, that a soda tax is regressive and that overweight doesn't necessarily equal unhealthy.

I bristle at the prospect of solving problems by throwing taxes at them, and I'm not sure the government should hold much sway over what we do and don't eat. But I do appreciate the impulse to make healthful foods more affordable than sugary sodas.

Still, I find myself bristling more than appreciating.

Help me out here, readers. Read Brownell's article and let me know what you think.

By Jennifer Huget | April 10, 2009; 7:00 AM ET | View or post comments | Category: Health Policy , Nutrition and Fitness , Obesity
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