Column: Add sugar fee to help fight childhood obesity

A recent article in the Star-Advertiser brought to light another disparity that has been worsened by the pandemic: childhood obesity. Obesity rates in Hawaii children between the ages of 10 and 17 have jumped to 15.5% in the years 2019 and 2020, up from 11.1% a few years prior.

Health professionals have been concerned about the rise in obesity rates for years, as it raises the risk for chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Even more worrisome, we see stark disparities in childhood obesity based on race, income and adverse childhood experiences. The communities in Hawaii most affected strongly overlap those hit hardest by COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

Communities know what is best for themselves, and for years have implemented programs to improve children’s health and increase access to healthier foods.

These include Double Up Food Bucks, which allows families to “double” their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program dollars when purchasing locally grown produce and healthy proteins and farm-to-school programs. These programs are effective because they make the healthy choice the easier choice.

Hawaii’s problem is not a lack of solutions, but rather, the lack of strategies to fund such programs adequately.

This is why the Obesity Prevention Task Force has been proposing legislation to add a fee onto sugar-sweetened beverages to generate revenue for programs focused on building better health. Sugary drinks, such as soda and sweetened teas, are the largest source of added sugar in the American diet. On average, children drink over 30 gallons of sugary drinks each year — enough to fill a bathtub! This excess sugar consumption contributes to many health problems, including Type 2 diabetes and cavities.

A 2-cent-per-ounce fee is estimated to raise $60.8 million per year, money that could be invested in communities by funding things like water bottle filling stations at schools, produce prescriptions, or dental care.

Not only would the fee help to pay for these programs, it would also help discourage sugary drink consumption. A 2017 study by Harvard estimated that enacting a 2-cent-per-ounce sugary drink fee in Hawaii would prevent 12,000 cases of childhood obesity, save the state more than $59 million in health care costs, and reduce the incidence of diabetes by 11% in just 10 years.

It needs to be mentioned that despite prevailing public sentiments, child obesity does not boil down to parents’ choices. Rather, it’s predominantly shaped by where children live, their environments and the family’s socioeconomic status. The nearly universal experience of parenthood is wanting what’s best for your child, but many long-standing complex issues, including structural racism and economic inequities, mean that we are not all given the same options.

The reality is that the impossible choices faced by many parents involve deciding between paying rent and buying groceries, not between buying kale vs. potato chips. It is easy to blame the choices of parents — many of whom are working multiple jobs to make ends meet — but doing so distracts from the very difficult choices families have to make every day.

The pandemic has rendered even more urgent the need to build healthy and equitable communities. We know what needs to be done and we know how to pay for community-based solutions. Now is the time to build the Hawaii that our keiki deserve.