Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Senate this week approved its bill to increase taxes on all soft drinks or nonalcoholic carbonated beverages from 15 cents to 30 cents.

According to the bill the “excess consumption of added sugars, especially from sugary drinks contributes to the high prevalence of childhood and adolescence obesity, especially among children and adolescents who are socioeconomically vulnerable.

“It also increases the risk for dental decay, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, fatty liver disease, and all-cause mortality, the bill reads.

In July, Senate President Tuaolo Manaia Fruean expressed concerns over the number of dialysis patients that continues to increase.

Tuaolo then urged Senators to look into increasing the taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages in the territory. Adding a lot of children are obese as a result of these sugar-sweetened drinks.

“Hike the taxes, we shouldn’t be sitting around,” he said during one of the sessions this week.

“We shouldn’t let the government off the hook,” Tuaolo added. Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes are increasingly used by countries around the world to incentivize healthy beverage choices.

Currently the taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages is 72 percent.

A study by the Australia and New Zealand Public Health Journal says the Pacific region is recorded as having some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world; and it has undergone rapid changes in nutrition with the increasing importation of processed food.

Findings are likely to be relevant to countries elsewhere — particularly small island developing states.

Furthermore in the Pacific the Ministers of Health and Finance have declared a non-communicable disease (NCD) crisis, stated that the financial costs of NCDs are unsustainable.

In the American Samoa Adult Hybrid Survey published in 2018, Director of Health, Motusa Tuilaeama Nua said American Samoa as many of its neighbors in the Pacific region has been plagued with non communicable diseases that are currently among the leading causes of death and disability among the people. (Such diseases are also referred to as ‘lifestyle’ diseases.)

Data from the survey of chronic conditions for obesity for American Samoans compared to the U.S. says it’s 93 percent compared to 71.6 percent in the U.S.; diabetes is 33 percent whereas its 12.2 percent for the U.S..

Senator Magalei Logovii during the Senate session said the bill in question is nothing new the only difference is they are increasing the taxes on soft drinks where 20 cents will go into the general fund and 10 cents will go to the hospital.

“Reports received is that $3.89 million was collected for taxes on sodas from October last year to September this year, in 2020 $3.4 million was the collection,” said Magalei.

THE BILL

The preamble to the bill says that decreasing sugary drink consumption is of particular importance because sugary drinks are the leading source of added sugars in the US diet, provide little to no nutritional value, are high in energy density, and do little to increase feelings of satiety.

 “To protect child and adolescents; health, broad implementation of policy strategies to reduce sugary drink consumption in children and adolescents is urgently needed.

 “Every morning, at every store in the territory, you see an influx of children, adolescents, and adults, purchasing soda, cookies, chips, etc. for breakfast; and our residents continue to purchase cheaper sodas, cookies, and chips, the higher the number of residents being diagnosed with diabetes.

 “The number of residents needing dialysis continues to rise, our LBJ Dialysis Unit runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year; and we must do a better job at encouraging healthy food choices for our youth.

 “One option is to raise the cost of soda. If we make it more expensive for our children to buy soda, we will hopefully encourage other choices for drinks, healthier choices, such as water.”

The bill was introduced in the House this week.

(Read story in Thursday’s issue.)