16 hours ago, quiet1 said:'That doesn't address any of the social or psychological points. It briefly mentions them and then just blows past to a position of "you have to be careful how you make the laws, but restricting must be good!" approximately.
I think we may be reaching the point of agreeing to disagree. The review article I quoted says, "Restrictions on SNAP and similar benefits have been criticized for singling out and stigmatizing poor families, potentially discouraging them from participating in government benefits programs [58,63]." The first reference is the article @DiggingDogFarm quoted and the the second is another by the same author. The abstract of the first citation says "Other objections question the equity of excluding sweetened beverages from SNAP; these objections are important but not ethically decisive." The second reaches a very similar conclusion. So yes, be careful, but those concerns need not be an ethical barrier to reform. Plenty of other references support the dietary benefits of reducing SSB intake.
Of course there is no such thing as 100% conclusive research (e.g. climate change) - especially in an area such as this. I personally tend to believe these arguments and that the SSB industry is going to leverage whatever angles it can to maintain their profits. With that said, some will use the statistic that started this discussion to build support to to eliminate or significantly cut funding for the SNAP program. I am 100% against that. I am open to compromising on well reasoned reforms though - especially if the compromises are necessary to maintain overall support for SNAP and similar programs. [potentially inflammatory political comment self-censored here]
FWIW, I very much enjoy Coke, but I generally don't drink it very often because I suspect my enjoyment is far outweighed by the deleterious health effects of freely consuming it. That notion has recently been reinforced by Gary Taubes. His book, The Case Against Sugar
