Brownell and Frieden remind us that "taxes on Tobacco products have been highly effective in reducing consumption”. Making such comparison instills hope in the reader generating him or her to truly believe that there can be a decrease in obesity. The comparison to tobacco at first seems powerful because it's a topic that everyone is quite familiar with yet it's not a clever comparison. To buy tobacco one must be 18 years old, however the consumption of sweetened beverages can start at a very young age. In addition, tobacco has always been advertised as being deadly to health even on the product itself, on the other hand we are never informed of how toxic sugar sweetened beverages can result to be. Brownell and Thomas also mention that out of 40 states that have applied small taxes Maine and New York have proposed larger taxes causing the excise tax to "raise an estimated $1.2 billion” revenue in the New York State alone. They barely mention New York nevertheless never mention Maine; they fail to present statistics and facts to illustrate the ways these states have been positively affected and how they've managed to help prolonged the life of Americans, at this point credibility has begun to …show more content…
Whether consumers stop purchasing these beverages solely relies on them; it is not guaranteed that consumers will substitute unhealthy beverages with healthy ones. The authors present a question “whether the proportions of calories consumed in liquid and solid foods would change? This question demonstrates that the authors cannot assure that an increase of sugar sweetened beverages will have promising results. The audience is now in doubt with several other questions arising about the effectiveness of imposing an excise tax. The credibility that the authors had been building up is now starting to collapse because a lot of unforeseen factors can affect the success of imposing taxes. For instance, consumers may be buying sugar beverages because that's all they can afford. The authors incorporate a line graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics where one can notice the price difference from fruit and vegetables to carbonated drinks. The graph reveals how the price of carbonated drinks have remained substantially low compared to exponential growth of fruits and vegetables All along the authors have been praising the benefits however they are not