Sodas are astonishing products. Little more than flavored sugar-water, these drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers--principally Coca-Cola and PepsiCo--into a multibillion-dollar industry with global recognition, distribution, and political power. Billed as "refreshing," "tasty," "crisp," and "the real thing," sodas also happen to be so well established to contribute to poor dental hygiene, higher calorie intake, obesity, and type-2 diabetes that the first line of defense against any of these conditions is to simply stop drinking them. Habitually drinking large volumes of soda not only harms individual health, but also burdens societies with runaway healthcare costs. So how did products containing absurdly inexpensive ingredients become multibillion dollar industries and international brand icons, while also having a devastating impact on public health? In Soda Politics, the 2016 James Beard Award for Writing & Literature Winner, Dr. Marion Nestle answers this question by detailing all of the ways that the soft drink industry works overtime to make drinking soda as common and accepted as drinking water, for adults and children. Dr. Nestle, a renowned food and nutrition policy expert and public health advocate, shows how sodas are principally miracles of advertising; Coca-Cola and PepsiCo spend billions of dollars each year to promote their sale to children, minorities, and low-income populations, in developing as well as industrialized nations. And once they have stimulated that demand, they leave no stone unturned to protect profits. That includes lobbying to prevent any measures that would discourage soda sales, strategically donating money to health organizations and researchers who can make the science about sodas appear confusing, and engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to create goodwill and silence critics. Soda Politics follows the money trail wherever it leads, revealing how hard Big Soda works to sell as much of their products as possible to an increasingly obese world. But Soda Politics does more than just diagnose a problem--it encourages readers to help find solutions. From Berkeley to Mexico City and beyond, advocates are successfully countering the relentless marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks. And their actions are having an impact--for all of the hardball and softball tactics the soft drink industry employs to maintain the status quo, soda consumption has been flat or falling for years. Health advocacy campaigns are now the single greatest threat to soda companies' profits. Soda Politics provides readers with the tools they need to keep up pressure on Big Soda in order to build healthier and more sustainable food systems.

The public health footprint associated with corporate behavior has come under increased scrutiny in the last decade, with an increased expectation that private profit not come at the expense of consumer welfare. Consumers, Corporations, and Public Health assembles 17 case studies at the intersection of business and public health to illustrate how each side can inform and benefit the other. Through contemporary examples from a variety of industries and geographies, this collection provides students with an appreciation for the importance of consumer empowerment and consumer behavior in shaping both health and corporate outcomes.

Sugar-sweetened beverage excise taxes are an effective evidence-based noncommunicable diseases (NCD) prevention policy. Along with tobacco and alcohol excise taxes, they are a tool to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, and are recommended by the World Health Organization to modify behavioral risk factors associated with obesity and NCDs, as featured in the WHO Global Action Plan. Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages have been described as a triple win for governments, because they 1) improuve population health, 2) generate revenue, and 3) have the potential to reduce long-term associated healthcare costs and productivity losses. Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages has been implemented in more than 73 countries worldwide. In the Region of the Americas, 21 PAHO/WHO Member States apply national-level excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and seven jurisdictions apply local sugar-sweetened beverage taxes in the United States of America. While the number of countries applying national excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages in the Region is promising, most of these taxes could be further leveraged to improve their impact on sugar-sweetened beverages consumption and health. This publication provides economic concepts related to the economic rationale for using sugar-sweetened beverage taxes and the costs associated with obesity; key considerations on tax design including tax types, bases, and rates; an overview of potential tax revenue and earmarking; evidence on the extent to which these taxes are expected to impact prices of taxed beverages, the demand for taxed beverages, and substitution to untaxed beverages; and responses to frequent questions about the economic impacts of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation.

This timely reference analyzes the rationale, impact, and feasibility of taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as a public health measure to contribute curbing obesity and diabetes rates, specifically in Canada. It presents the pros and cons of taxing soda, with the latest data on adverse health effects of its consumption, plus the various business and political issues surrounding the contentious proposition. Reviewed research is multidisciplinary, spanning health and medicine to ethics, economics, and law. Conclusions and caveats are clear and presented at a comfort level for the general reader. The result is a blueprint for analyzing the relevancy of taxes on sweetened soft drinks or other low-nutrition food products, plus a trove of valuable insights into aspects of government decision-making and consumer food behavior. Included in the coverage: · Reasons for specifically targeting SSBs · SSB taxation as a public health policy instrument · Effects of SSB taxation on energy intakes and population health · Potential undesirable effects relating to SSB taxation · Social and political acceptability of SSB taxation · Evaluability of SSB taxation Taxing Soda for Public Health will interest policymakers, public health professionals, advocacy groups, and researchers at the Canadian and international levels (e.g., in areas such as public health, nutrition, food and health policies, health economics, and evaluation), as well as students and all other parties interested in nutrition policies.

This guideline provides updated global, evidence-informed recommendations on the intake of free sugars to reduce the risk of NCDs in adults and children, with a particular focus on the prevention and control of unhealthy weight gain and dental caries. The recommendations in this guideline can be used by policy-makers and programme managers to assess current intake levels of free sugars in their countries relative to a benchmark. They can also be used to develop measures to decrease intake of free sugars, where necessary, through a range of public health interventions. Examples of such interventions and measures that are already being implemented by countries include food and nutrition labelling, consumer education, regulation of marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages that are high in free sugars, and fiscal policies targeting foods and beverages that are high in free sugars. This guideline should be used in conjunction with other nutrient guidelines and dietary goals, in particular those related to fats and fatty acids (including saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids), to guide development of effective public health nutrition policies and programmes to promote a healthy diet.

Food Law and Policy surveys the elements of modern food law. It broadens the coverage of traditional food and drug law topics of safety, marketing, and nutrition, and includes law governing environment, international trade, and other legal aspects of the modern food system. The result is the first casebook that provides a comprehensive treatment of food law as a unique discipline. Key Features: Draws together cases with other regulatory materials such as rulemaking documents and agency requests for proposals for grant funding. Focuses on federal law and includes discussion of innovations in food law happening at the municipal, state and federal level. Covers the latest developments in food law.

Conventional wisdom dictates that those goods which are said to cause harm or impose costs on society deserve a special tax. For centuries, governments have levied these "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco, but the list of taxable sins has now grown to include soda and marijuana, with calls to impose further taxes on plastic bags, meat, and even robots and carbon. Contrary to what experts and policymakers tell us, many of these alleged sins impose very little, if any, cost on society, and the harms that do exist can be minimized without resorting to tax. What follows in this book is a discussion of four case studies—on tobacco, marijuana, alcohol and soda—which make the case against the conventional wisdom in taxing these "sins", before concluding that when it comes to taxing sin, it is time for governments to forgive—and forget.

Since 1980, childhood obesity rates have more than tripled in the United States. Recent data show that almost one-third of children over 2 years of age are already overweight or obese. While the prevalence of childhood obesity appears to have plateaued in recent years, the magnitude of the problem remains unsustainably high and represents an enormous public health concern. All options for addressing the childhood obesity epidemic must therefore be explored. In the United States, legal approaches have successfully reduced other threats to public health, such as the lack of passive restraints in automobiles and the use of tobacco. The question then arises of whether laws, regulations, and litigation can likewise be used to change practices and policies that contribute to obesity. On October 21, 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) held a workshop to bring together stakeholders to discuss the current and future legal strategies aimed at combating childhood obesity. Legal Strategies in Childhood Obesity Prevention summarizes the proceedings of that workshop. The report examines the challenges involved in implementing public health initiatives by using legal strategies to elicit change. It also discusses circumstances in which legal strategies are needed and effective. This workshop was created only to explore the boundaries of potential legal approaches to address childhood obesity, and therefore, does not contain recommendations for the use of such approaches.

The Asia-Pacific region has seen great social, environmental and economic change across the past century, leading to dramatic changes in the health profiles of all populations represented in South East and East Asia, Pacific Islands and the islands of Melanesia. This volume considers evidence concerning prehistoric migration, and colonial, regional and global processes in the production of health change in the Asia-Pacific region. Notably, it examines ways in which a health pattern dominated by under-nutrition and infection has been displaced in many ways, and is being displaced elsewhere by over-nutrition and the degenerative diseases associated with it. This book presents a cohesive view of the ways in which exchange relationships, economic modernization, migration and transnational linkages interact with changing rural subsistence ecologies to influence health patterns in this region.

Designed as a supplement for either Principles or Intermediate Microeconomics, The Tobacco Wars is an interesting and unique way to illustrate the concepts of microeconomics as applied to real-life, current events. Not only does this lively discussion of the tobacco litigation provide insight into the recent and historical controversies, but it also follows along with the concepts taught in microeconomics.