Changes in Weight-Related Outcomes Among Adolescents After Consumer Price Increases for Taxed Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

GračnerT, Marquez-Padilla F, Hernandez-CortesD. Changes in Weight-Related Outcomes Among Adolescents After Consumer Price Increases for Taxable Sugar-Sweetened Beverages. JAMA Pediatrics. Published online December 13, 2021. doi: 10.1001 / jamapediatrics.2021.5044

Commentary

The purpose of this study was to compare weight-related outcomes of adolescents living in cities with different price changes before and after the implementation of the SSB (sugar-sweetened beverage) tax in Mexico.

The study included 12,654 adolescents aged 10-18 years, born between 1999 and 2002, living in 39 cities in Mexico, overall and by sex.

Multivariate regressions with individual fixed effects were collected by the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) and applied to long-term individual-level annual clinical data (height and weight) from 2012 to 2017 and collected from 2011 to 2016 merged with city-level SSB price data. Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) were analyzed from July 2018 to July 2021.

Prior to 2014, 46% of the 12 654 adolescents (6850 girls and 5804 boys) included in the study were considered obese or overweight. Among girls, a 10 percent increase in SSB price was shown to be associated with an absolute decrease of 1.3 percentage points (95 percent CI, -2.19 to -0.36; P = .008), or a 3 percent relative decrease in the prevalence of overweight or obesity.

It was also shown that for girls with a BMI above the 75th percentile pretax, this price increase was associated with a 0.59th percentile decrease (95% CI, -1.08 to -0.10; P = .02), or a 0.67% relative decrease.

In cities where after-tax price increases exceeded 10 percent, we observed improved outcomes for girls and no such association for boys.