Feedback of Partner's Post

 

According to Kiyoi Shin's Blog, she introduced an article "Have a Coke and a Tax: The economic case against soda taxes” by the author Veronique de Rugy. Kiyoi agrees with Rugy’s article that soda tax would not be an efficient way to reduce the obesity rate because people would still find replacement of soda drink with other bad foods and drinks. In Kiyoi’s article her support gives an example of tax on beer. It mentions that after tax on beer was increased that the use of other substitutes like marijuana has increased. Kiyoi gave her opinion that government should focus on health education about obesity, not just focus only on increasing tax on sugary drinks.

I think Kiyoi’s support is not strong enough to convince me taxes won’t work. One sentence on her blog said “people will still find the foods or drinks which is equally bad and to replace the sugary drinks”. I think in this particular sentence that people did not want to be obese and people did not find any replacement of bad foods or drink to make them fat. I think people find other cheap food and drink to consume for survival because they have no choice of choosing other heathier foods or drink. Also, in the example of Kiyoi’s support about beer and marijuana I think it’s not relevant to obesity. People consume beer because they want the effect of it. We consume beer to get drunk. When the price of beer increase, people consume marijuana because marijuana is also makes people feel similar. When comparing to sugary drinks or food. People did not consume sugary drinks to get fat, we consume food and drink for survival. I think comparison between food and drugs are two different stories. However, I do agree with Kiyoi’s point that education would help in solving obesity problem.