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By Roger Chartier

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AMA Adopted A Tax On Soda Idea

On Wednesday, June 20, 2012 the American Medical Association held a meeting where they adopted an idea of taxing soda. They want to put the proceeds into anti obesity and other similar programs.

Dr. Alexander Ding, an AMA board member said:
“While there is no silver bullet that will alone reverse the meteoric rise of obesity, there are many things we can do to fight this epidemic and improve the health of our nation,”

And... “Improved consumer education on the adverse health effects of excessive consumption of beverages containing added sweeteners should be a key part of any multifaceted campaign to combat obesity.”

Your author here has lost 40 pounds recently and is working on getting rid of another 20 lbs to get down to a normal weight.

The tax is just a small economic incentive, but it will work to some extent because of the money going to research etc.

Americans are blatantly overweight

And it genuinely shows. You can see it when you are walking in a store or on the street just looking around. It is shown that 46% of American weight is from sugar related drinks.

The American Beverage Association disagrees to the extent that they feel that the idea of taxing to help fight obesity is both misguided and discriminatory.

Because programs that are anti-drug or anti-whatever don't always work well, the tax might be more useful as a societal changer.

In reality if you start to drink water more often during the day you will have a better health situation.

The AMA’s Council on Science and Public Health said that a tax of a penny an ounce on sweetened drinks could bring a 5% reduction in overweight or fat on people.

Doctors

Feel that many other things can also be done to help with the problem of overweight people.

The whole deal is still up in the air and not nailed down at all, but the thinking is quite right in any case.

If people are thinking of what can be done, then at least something might get done to eliminate the weight.

There are more AMA meetings as well as other types of groups that feel similarly having meetings around us.

They will gather in the near future and the likelihood that change will come from them is still up in the air, but at least looking good.