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Sugar tax may prevent millions of dental procedures, study suggests (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by arbilp3@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Health experts have thrown their support behind the proposal, which aligns with long-standing recommendations from the World Health Organization.

Researchers suggest money generated from the proposed tax could be used to strengthen oral health services, improving access and cutting costs at the dentist.

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[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

A tax on sugary drinks is literally a poor tax. You're taxing poor people for one of the few pleasures they have in life that they can afford easily.

You know what would improve dental health across the board? Offering free dental insurance to every man woman and child in the country. You know what would stop people from having to buy sugary drinks so often? Fully fund food stamps across the board. Give people the ability to buy healthy whole foods to feed to their kids.

Edit: My mistake in not realizing this article was about Australia. My point still stands though. A tax on sugary drinks is only going to punish poor people unnecessarily and not lead to a dramatic reduction in soft drink consumption. It was tried here in my state and failed spectacularly.

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This post is about Australia.

You do have a seriously inequitable food system in the US. This is a sad and unnecessary situation.

Studies tend to show that sugary drink taxes do have some effect on better health outcomes. For example<

https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/5-takeaways-from-the-evidence-on-sweetened-beverage-taxes/

It is the poor who bear the brunt of ill health in large part due to only being able to afford cheap, bad-quality processed food. Sweetening the poison only adds more poison. Stand up for clean water in the US which you have problems with too:

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/americas-failing-drinking-water-system

[–] dockedatthewrongworf@aussie.zone 5 points 3 days ago

I'm a bit confused with your comment. Australia as far as I know does not have a good stamp program. Do you think this is an article about the US?

And on your first point there is a variety of reasons to tax sugar. The majority of which are related to health outcomes and not just dental.