Meh, its not a perfect correlation (and the time series for the poverty map and the diabetes map are different), but most chronic diseases tend correlate with poverty pretty well. You should look at a map of obesity. It follows the same form.

Apparently it's defined by your blood sugar 🤷‍♂️

It doesn’t make a difference which side you tax. If consumers are taxed then corporations will still feel it through reduced demand for their product. If corporations are taxed, consumers will still feel it through increased prices. The tax burden does not depend on who is taxed, but rather how elastic supply and demand are.

Wouldn’t the price go up irrespective of which side you tax it on? Obviously if this is a megacorp, they could spread it out over unrelated products, but in the end its not like theyll roll over, take the corporate tax and leave the product at the old price. Is it being a poor tax even that bad of a thing? This is not a necessity and poor people are generally going to be the ones that suffer from poor diet / lifestyle choices in very big part due to the price/calorie aspect of junkfood et al. Lets be real, if you buy a bar once a week, 1.29->3.29 is not a big deal.

Also, we do have tax on sugarry soft drinks in the EU (atleast my country), it is just laughably small compared to EtOH and tobacco). I personally always have thought that anything with added sugar beyond a certain amount should get a heavy tax, conditional on this tax being funneled into healthcare / public health programs.

Agreed. Though either way the price of heavily sugared stuff would go up

Yeah I consume near 400g carbs every day and am fine as a competitive powerlifter who also runs (which is rare lol). You just can't be sitting on your ass all day.

If you paid twice as much for the sugar, would it materially impact you?

Sure, but so few people are high energy athletes who can legitimately burn the sugar right away.

My comment was really about the great majority of people for whom sugar consumption is a path to metabolic disease, diabetes, and early death

I still support a tax on sugar as it would reduce consumption overall, but for those wealthy enough to exercise hard a sugar tax would hardly hurt

I recently lost 100lbs partially thanks to Diet Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew Zero, and a world of sugar free energy drinks. I also gained 40 lbs of muscle mass.

Note that I gained much of the weight due to major medical issues which left me bedridden for an extended period of time (years). I don’t have the fastest metabolism in the world, so it took a lot of work to melt the pounds off. I could not have done it without diet soda/energy drinks.

The only reason researchers been able to determine for diet soda not contributing to weight loss/“fat” disease prevention is that (current studies are showing) we (consciously or subconsciously) attempt to replace those missing calories with more sugar, rather than cutting back. While there have been studies on the effects of artificial sweeteners on insulin production, etc. they are mostly inconclusive.

If you are shooting for a low carb/low calorie diet, a good diet soda is a safe choice. Don’t let others make you miserable. Just make sure you aren’t pulling in extra calories elsewhere.

Regardless of what type of diet you follow, remember that weight loss boils down to calories out > calories in. Most of your calories come from carbs, so taking on a more active lifestyle with a high protein/low carb diet will ultimately help you lose weight and build muscle mass. Just don’t skimp on the protein (you want most of your calories to come from protein) because you will also be burning some muscle mass unless you actively try to prevent it. Keep a food journal and write down everything you eat/drink. Some dietary choices you make without realizing may surprise you.