Sugar Cap-and-Trade May Cut Obesity

The cap-and-trade strategy debuted in the U.S. in the 1990s in response to high levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides released into the atmosphere as waste from the electrical power industry. The government placed a cap on the amount of sulfur dioxide that a company could produce, but allowed companies to trade pollution rights. was applied to the food industry with added sugars -- looking specifically at how such a policy could impact caloric consumption and obesity and diabetes rates, should manufacturers decide among themselves whether to reformulate their products or to buy and sell added sugar "emissions" permits. They relied on data from the USDA, the U.S. Census Bureau, and NHANES to construct a mathematical model of a cap-and-trade policy that aimed to reduce added sugar emissions into the food supply by 20% over 20 years. They found that this policy could substantially reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes rates -- driving down obesity prevalence by 1.7 percentage points and the incidence of type 2 diabetes by 21.7 cases per 100,000 people during that time period.