Hearing seeks means to recoup $41 billion in health costs caused by these epidemics

SACRAMENTO -- Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) will chair a hearing into some of California’s leading health threats Tuesday in Sacramento, examining the role sugar-sweetened beverages have played in raising rates of both obesity and diabetes – particularly among children.

Tuesday’s joint hearing of Senate Food and Agriculture and the Senate Health Committee, chaired by Senator Elaine Alquist (D-San Jose), will explore ways in which California could recoup some of the $41 billion attributed to the health care costs of these diseases each year.

Florez has introduced Senate Bill 1210, which would tax sugar-sweetened beverages at a rate of one penny per teaspoon of added sugar to fund childhood obesity prevention programs, such as physical education and nutrition programs in California schools.

Tuesday’s hearing will bring together medical professionals, soda industry representatives, community health advocates and experts on the impact of marketing soda to youth to provide added context for Florez’s historic measure.

More than 60 percent of Americans are now considered overweight or obese, with the childhood obesity rate having tripled since 1980. The bill’s sponsors, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, attribute much of the surge in obesity rates to Americans’ increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Over the past 30 years, Americans have increased their daily calorie intake by nearly 300 calories, with almost half of that coming from sugar-sweetened beverages. Each 20-ounce soda, in addition to those added calories, contains three times the amount of sugar considered “healthy” for an adult to consume in an entire day. Rates of diabetes have followed suit, with one in 13 people statewide now afflicted with the disease. In the Central Valley, which Florez represents, the Fresno Bee reports that nineteen people die each week from diabetes.