Newfoundland and Labrador has applied a tax of 20 cents per litre on sugary drinks. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Newfoundland and Labrador made historical past in September as the primary Canadian province to implement a sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes additionally exist outdoors of Canada, together with in Mexico, Philadelphia, Penn. and the United Kingdom. In Newfoundland and Labrador the tax quantities to twenty cents per litre of sugar-sweetened beverage.
Sugar-sweetened beverage taxation is supported by many world and nationwide well being organizations, such because the World Health Organization, Diabetes Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Taxes are a preferred public well being coverage due to associations between sugary beverage consumption and Type 2 diabetes and weight acquire.
Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes are excise taxes, or flat taxes, which additionally make them regressive taxes. This sort of taxation has actual potential to have dangerous results on fairness as lower-income populations pays the next proportion of their earnings via this tax. Previous critiques of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation additionally embody the potential hurt to small enterprise and First Nations communities.
Read extra:
A sin tax on sugary drinks unfairly targets Indigenous communities as an alternative of bettering well being
Weight stigma
Notably absent from this checklist of harms is the potential of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation to create or exacerbate stigma, together with weight stigma. Weight stigma in well being insurance policies has acquired world consideration and there are lots of calls to motion to finish weight-stigmatizing insurance policies.
Weight stigma consists of stereotypes of laziness and stupidity, which aren’t supported by proof.
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Stigma happens, partially, when a label — equivalent to “weight problems” — is related to unfavorable stereotypes, resulting in discrimination and lack of standing. Weight stigma consists of stereotypes of laziness and stupidity. It can result in discrimination in health-care and office settings.
Weight stigma has unfavorable results on psychological and bodily well being, together with health-care avoidance, disordered consuming, self exclusion from sport and train and stress. Contrary to what many individuals suppose, stigma isn’t an efficient technique for weight reduction.
Even earlier than Newfoundland and Labrador declared its intentions with sugar-sweetened beverage taxation, vital curiosity in Canada and globally led us to discover attitudes and acceptability of a tax in our province of Manitoba. We carried out an interview-based examine with residents of many various places, together with a middle-to-upper class, liberal neighbourhood within the provincial capital, Winnipeg.
Our contributors from this location had been white, meals safe and primarily extremely educated. In our evaluation, we particularly sought out cases of weight stigma within the interview transcripts.
Stigmatizing messages
We had been within the language contributors used as a result of folks take in the messages they hear and the pictures they see. They could push again, change or repeat these messages.
People take in the messages they hear and the pictures they see.
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In our evaluation of the interviews, we discovered that many contributors repeated weight-stigmatizing messages when discussing sugar-sweetened drinks. A extra overt manner this occurred was via the judgement of higher-weight people who had been shopping for or consuming sugar-sweetened drinks.
Weight stigma additionally occurred in additional covert or delicate methods. For instance, some contributors talked about their “disgust” and different unfavorable feelings related to their weight and others’ weight. Many contributors additionally spoke of their “duty” to drop some weight or to guard their kids from turning into chubby by not consuming sugar-sweetened drinks and juice.
Weight dissatisfaction is dangerous to 1’s well being. Disgust additionally has justice implications for public well being. Being disgusted by somebody makes them appear lower than human. It can contribute to blaming folks for situations attributable to a number of organic and social components and may reinforce prejudice.
Participants additionally described greater weight people as a “burden” on the health-care system and {that a} tax on sugar-sweetened drinks would assist offset these perceived prices. While this fantasy of weight problems bankrupting the health-care system is pervasive, analysis suggests in any other case. In Manitoba, the well being service utilization for people categorised as chubby was discovered to be much like these categorised as regular weight. Health-care utilization was solely marginally greater for people categorised as overweight.
Policies and stigma
Hearing these feedback repeated in our interviews indicated to us how pervasive and widespread weight stigma was in contributors’ attitudes towards sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. Most importantly, these beliefs knowledgeable assist or acceptability of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation.
This discovering echoes current analysis suggesting reciprocal processes between stigma at inter- and intra-personal ranges and insurance policies. This signifies that interpersonal stigma could contribute to the creation of stigmatizing insurance policies and that stigmatizing insurance policies could in flip legitimize and worsen current stigma.
Our particular analysis inhabitants was chosen as a result of it was a superb illustration of the dominant social group in Canada — a white, middle-to-upper class, extremely educated section of the inhabitants. This dominant inhabitants can be more likely to be much like many policymakers, additional supporting the views of this group inside Canadian insurance policies.
Our findings exhibit how weight-stigmatizing feedback had been utilized in assist of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation. Weight stigma has severe well being penalties. If Canadian public well being professionals are dedicated to tackling weight stigma in well being insurance policies, we have to rethink our assist for this coverage.
Anne Katherine Anderson Waugh acquired Canada Graduate Scholarship-Masters funding from CIHR. She has additionally acquired funding from the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Graduate Studies.
Andrea Bombak receives funding from New Brunswick Health Research Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Banting Discovery Award.
Natalie Diane Riediger receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Celiac Association, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, University of Manitoba, Mitacs, and Universities Canada.
Patty Thille presently receives funding from Research Manitoba.
Kerstin Roger doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.
