Applying Tobacco Control Lessons to Obesity: Taxes and Other Pricing Strategies to Reduce Consumption

Public health advocates, particularly those focused on chronic disease prevention, are actively exploring whether and how policy interventions tested in tobacco control apply to the obesity epidemic.

Section 1 of this synopsis summarizes the salient lessons learned about taxes as a legal intervention to reduce tobacco consumption. Section 2 considers the potential impact of increased taxes on sugar- sweetened beverages,  and possibly snack foods, from a legal and policy perspective. Section 3 explores potential parallels between dedicated revenue plans for tobacco taxes and the earmarking of sugar-sweetened beverage tax increases for obesity prevention.