by José de la Isla
HOUSTON, Texas – Bears evidently get tooth decay from eating honey. Humans also get cavities from eating too much sugar. Bears and humans are the only ones in the animal kingdom with this similarity.
The comparison comes to mind after the Center for Science in the Public Interest urged the Senate Finance Committee on May13 to adopt a tax on non-diet soda drinks. The group also included alcoholic beverages as a source for funding expanded healthcare coverage.
Former president Bill Clinton, a champion of controlling childhood obesity, was quick to respond. “I think the better thing to do is to give incentives right across the board for prevention and wellness,” he told ABC News two days later. Clinton’s Alliance for a Healthier Generation has worked with beverage makers to reduce the caloric content of drinks sold in school vending machines.
Dr. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, calls soft drinks major contributors to obesity in recent decades. In turn, obesity is a major cause of diabetes, hypertension, strokes, heart attacks and cancer. That is the underlying rationale for asking Congress to impose a new excise tax on non-diet soft drinks, both carbonated and non-carbonated.
The science is on the side of the tax.
On the day prior to the testimony unnamed Senate aides told the Wall Street Journal that key lawmakers were weighing the idea behind closed doors. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated such a tax could yield as much as $24 billion in the next four years to help pay for broad, expanded health insurance.
It’s not hard to anticipate that the beverage industry and groups that ritually demonize the word “tax” will oppose the idea. Yet, it seems, on the face of it, feelings run disproportionately high over simple products like flavored water. How can something that tastes so good be so bad?
Last September, Donna Maldonado-Schullo reported in Al Día of Philadelphia on a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report that one soda a day can add up to 15 pounds of weight gain in a year. Of the foods we commonly consume, soda is responsible for the largest percentage of calories. Sodas contain large amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used as a sweetener, increasing the risk of obesity and diabetes.
Children are particularly vulnerable because HFCS has high levels of reactive compounds that cause tissue damage, which in turn can lead to diabetes.
Soft drinks with HFCS have high levels of reactive carbonyls, a compound associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules believed to damage tissue. In contrast, common table sugar is “bound” and chemically “stable.”
That is not to say that sugar consumption is particularly benign, either. A hundred years ago, the average person consumed roughly five pounds a year. About 20 years ago, consumption rose to 20 pounds. Now it’s 135 pounds.
Literally, innutritious eating and drinking has become a health concern. High sugar content in diets leads to metabolic syndrome —the co-incidence of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.
According to the National Institutes of Heath, 65 percent of diabetics will die of heart attacks or stroke. They report 10.4 percent of Hispanics have already been diagnosed with diabetes.
Alarmingly, for those 50 or older the rate reaches 25 to 30 percent.
Meanwhile, as U.S. population percentages continue to decline among all children, evidence suggests that producers like Cadbury Schweppes look for market growth by expanding and intensifying marketing efforts directed toward Hispanic youth.
This “low hanging fruit,” as one trade journal referred to the Hispanic market, at least called them something nutritious. They could have called them big sweet-tooth bears. Hispanic Link.
[José de la Isla’s latest book, Day Night Life Death Hope, is distributed by The Ford Foundation. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com). © 2009
