Research in the past decade has demonstrated that sugar-sweetened drinks are a major culprit behind the obesity epidemic.  With billions spent annually on advertising, luring consumers to drink these unhealthy beverages, it is extremely difficult for health experts to ask individuals to change their soft drink habits without any environmental support.

Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages is an emerging avenue to discourage consumers from drinking these unhealthy drinks. According to Yale’s Rudd Center, seventeen states and three cities (Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.) filed soft drink tax legislation in the past two years.  Not surprisingly, there has been heavy push back from the beverage industry, including groups like American Beverage Association and Americans Against Food Taxes.

In Boston, Mayor Tom Menino recently joined the crusade for healthier drinks, announcing last week that high sugar beverages will be banned from all city properties and functions. This is in addition to the current sugared beverage ban in Boston’s public schools.  This is an important decision and a bold statement to the world reinforcing the truth that we need to change, and showing “what a healthy community would look like.”

Thank you, Mayor Menino, for taking this wise action to protect our health.  Your decision will ripple around the world!

Photo by Afroswede from the Creative Commons