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New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

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Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#81

Post by cycomanic »

SilasX wrote: post #66
cycomanic wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.

Yes, and sometimes fools say the sky is blue. That doesn’t make it red.

Do you have actual arguments? The reasons for me giving these points above is that this way of arguing has become standard PR practice from industries that want to prevent outcomes that would be detrimental to their bottom line (tobacco sugar, oil...). They actually are not interested in a debate that finds the actual truth. In fact they often know that the facts are correct from their own studies, but want to cast doubt on them nevertheless.

I'm perfectly ok with someone giving actual arguments (ideally backed up by some scientific evidence) why that study might get the correct result. I didn't even make any judgement about the validity of the original conclusions.

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#82

Post by skulk »

thesz wrote: post #17
gnicholas wrote: post #10

This tax does not apply to diet sodas, [1] which have been shown to prompt food cravings, especially in women and obese people. [2] So it's possible that people just substituted from regular to diet soda, and still eat just as much. 1: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/... 2: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/07/1044010...

Artificial sweeteners also prompt insulin rise and promote insulin resistance: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014832/ So, yes, if it is not water, with or without CO2, it should be ingested with caution.

That study was in patients that were already type-2 diabetic. Here's one that compares stevia, aspartame, and sucrose by satiety and (what I assume is) measures of glucose and insulin in blood: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900484/

Only immediately obvious caveat is that the sample size may be a bit small:

> 19 healthy lean (BMI = 20.0 – 24.9) and 12 obese (BMI = 30.0 – 39.9) individuals 18 to 50 years old

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#83

Post by SilasX »

cycomanic wrote: post #81
SilasX wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and sometimes fools say the sky is blue. That doesn’t make it red.

Do you have actual arguments? The reasons for me giving these points above is that this way of arguing has become standard PR practice from industries that want to prevent outcomes that would be detrimental to their bottom line (tobacco sugar, oil...). They actually are not interested in a debate that finds the actual truth. In fact they often know that the facts are correct from their own studies, but want to cast d…

Your “actual argument” is to (in contravention of HN guidelines) impugn motives and accuse others of shilling. Once there’s a substantive discussion to be had, I’ll join it!

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#85

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ellyagg wrote: post #7

Armed with three years of grocery shopping data, researchers found that total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases. This isn't the right definition of success. The first minimal requirement for this to be a successful initiative is that the community lost weight overall. Or even gained weight, but more slowly than other communities. If they could prove that it would be a…

Also, Seattlites aren’t exactly obese on average, it would be difficult to measure a change vs if some small Texan town did this.

A lot of richer people in Seattle avoid sugar as a matter of health, but they pay for it since non-sugar sweetener drinks like super coffee are more expensive. The sugar tax is more aimed down market.

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#86

Post by cycomanic »

SilasX wrote: post #75
dlp211 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes zero sense. A gallon of gas is about $4.00, the idea that someone would spend all that gas money to avoid a tax of 1.75 cents/oz just doesn't pass the sniff test.

“Haha! People wouldn’t bear any meaningful cost to avoid a piddling 1.75 cents/oz tax, that can be dismissed as laughable.” “I am uncritically accepting a study that says a 1.75 cents/oz tax was successful in changing consumer behavior because the additional burden it added to the cost of soda.” You can’t have it both ways, claim the tax influenced behavior in terms of reducing consumption but not in terms of circumv…

? Yes you can. The argument he's making is that the cost of circumventing the tax is larger than the tax. So if the tax is working because people are sensitive to the extra cost, it would make perfect sense that they would not spend 2 cents/oz to avoid the tax and thus loose money.

Now one can certainly make a good argument that people are not fully rational and often do not consider fuel and time costs when looking for the cheapest deal, but that's not what you did.

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#87

Post by cycomanic »

cycomanic wrote: post #48
ellyagg wrote: post #7

Armed with three years of grocery shopping data, researchers found that total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases. This isn't the right definition of success. The first minimal requirement for this to be a successful initiative is that the community lost weight overall. Or even gained weight, but more slowly than other communities. If they could prove that it would be a…

To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.

I just want to clarify I am not accusing the OP of being an industry shill, they might just simply adopting arguments seen at other places (and they are very common). And it is incredibly easy to be led into this, I certainly have done this as well and only realized later. It is an important thing to be aware of.

I'm rejecting the type of argument, because they do not foster an honest debate. It's really classic FUD.

[Edit]: some further clarification

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#88

Post by seanmcdirmid »

silisili wrote: post #4

I'm...skeptical. Mostly that in a city where houses stretch into the millions now, people forego a can of Coke over a 20 cent price increase. Soda consumption has been on a long decline since the late aughts. I even noticed as much anecdotally - often when dining out I would be the only one or maybe one of two to order a soda at all. I'm completely willing to be proven wrong, but the data set is much too small to con…

People in Seattle with more money are already avoiding sugar for health reasons. The tax seems to be aimed at poorer consumers who would be influenced by it. Or it’s just a money grab by the SCC.

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#89

Post by [deleted] »

SilasX wrote: post #83
cycomanic wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have actual arguments? The reasons for me giving these points above is that this way of arguing has become standard PR practice from industries that want to prevent outcomes that would be detrimental to their bottom line (tobacco sugar, oil...). They actually are not interested in a debate that finds the actual truth. In fact they often know that the facts are correct from their own studies, but want to cast d…

Your “actual argument” is to (in contravention of HN guidelines) impugn motives and accuse others of shilling. Once there’s a substantive discussion to be had, I’ll join it!

[deleted]

Re: New evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working well

#90

Post by cycomanic »

SilasX wrote: post #83
cycomanic wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have actual arguments? The reasons for me giving these points above is that this way of arguing has become standard PR practice from industries that want to prevent outcomes that would be detrimental to their bottom line (tobacco sugar, oil...). They actually are not interested in a debate that finds the actual truth. In fact they often know that the facts are correct from their own studies, but want to cast d…

Your “actual argument” is to (in contravention of HN guidelines) impugn motives and accuse others of shilling. Once there’s a substantive discussion to be had, I’ll join it!

Honest question, what are you trying to achieve?
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