A normative analysis of the sugary drinks tax as an intervention to reduce obesity in South Africa

Abstract

Is the implementation of a sugary drinks tax an ethically justifiable intervention to reduce obesity in South Africa? The purpose of this research is to normatively analyse the justifications for and against the use of a sugary drinks tax as a public health intervention and to normatively evaluate whether it is an effectiveness intervention to reduce obesity in South Africa. I also apply the Nuffield Council of Bioethics Framework to normatively assess the ethical conflict of whether the restriction imposed by taxation on individual autonomy is ethically justified. This research is a purely normative study and is based on desk-top and library-based research. The sources of literature include, but was not limited to, research articles, books, Google Scholar, Pubmed, Government legislation and policies and other academic research engines for gathering the research data. There is no scientific evidence that the consumption of a single product type i.e. sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) is directly linked to the high incidence of obesity in South Africa nor is there scientific evidence that the sugary drinks tax will reduce the incidence of obesity as claimed by the state. This is supported by reports from most countries where this tax has already been implemented. This intervention has no public health benefit and therefore can’t be justified as an ethical public health intervention. Furthermore, the restriction imposed by the introduction of the sugary drink tax on individual choice through affordability is not ethically justified due to the regressive nature of taxation and its higher impact on the socially disadvantaged. This puts the intervention in conflict with the core value of public health, i.e. social justice, and thus exposes the familiar use of statistics by the state as a tactic to justify the implementation of ineffective and unethical health policies.