If sugar is the new tobacco, then soda drinkers must be the new smokers. So what can we expect next in the war against sugar?

The first step of any ‘compassionate health policy’ is normally around social acceptability. Soda should not be a “cool” activity. I’m imagining mass campaigns to remind people of their social responsibility: good friends don’t let their friends get fat.

Next step: make it really, really inconvenient to drink soda. Basically, soda drinking should never be enjoyed indoors. Or in semi-enclosed spaces where they can be protected from the wind and cold. To be sure, ban healthy alternatives like diet soda too in case they renormalise regular soda drinking.

To get traction, all the public health campaigners would need to do is remind people that “it worked for tobacco”. Any further research is just icing on the cake.

Consider the latest calls for the plain packaging of soda. The policy recommendation came from an online survey of young people’s perceptions of ‘coolness’, ‘interestingness’, taste and quality.  These preferences were used to predict the respondents’ decision to buy soda. 

The researchers found that young people would be less likely to buy soda if it had a graphic warning label. This is groundbreaking stuff: pictures of rotting teeth reduce the ‘coolness’ of that drink. 

To think, policy recommendations can be made from online surveys on totally hypothetical scenarios. Or worse, from perceptions of coolness. Incidentally, perceptions of healthfulness only decreased incrementally between the branded and ugly bottle versions, health misperceptions is not a motivating factor behind the policy.

Besides, the claim ‘it has worked for tobacco’ is itself questionable. It is more accurate to say ‘it has been tried for tobacco’. Plain packaging hasn’t been implemented in New Zealand yet. While Australia was the first to implement the policy overseas in 2012, the evidence of effectiveness isn’t yet clear. 

A similar comparison was made for sugar taxes. But given the tobacco tax rate is now around 150 percent, it is hard to believe that a 20 percent sugar tax (what most campaigners are advocating for) will have anywhere near the same effect. Just as the Labour Party is rethinking their position on sugar taxes, despite a lack of supporting evidence, perhaps graphic warnings on soda bottles won’t seem so crazy in the near future either.

In the meantime, I’m practising my disapproving glares in preparation for the next time someone cracks open a bottle of Fanta in front of me.