Why I Stopped Posting Transformation Pictures

“You cannot legislate good will - that comes through education.” - Malcolm X

The Bermuda Sugar Tax supposed purpose is to encourage healthier decisions which would lead to healthier people. I do believe the role of the government is to protect its people, sometimes from themselves, but this tactic is faulty. We have seen sugar taxes and other punishing or restricting strategies executed elsewhere and those destinations aren't any healthier because of it. We cannot force someone to be healthy, but what we can and should do is educate people on what health really is; the numerous benefits and rewards of being healthy; while providing the resources needed to achieve it. I believe this would be more beneficial to dealing with Bermuda’s health crisis vs taxing selected beverages and candies.

For example, the average adult doesn’t know they should be consuming roughly 7 servings of vegetables a day. Some studies suggest the average adult only gets 1.3 servings of vegetables a day. This correlates with my experiences talking with people who are actually trying to get healthy. Vegetables is one of our primary sources of nutrients and having insufficient nutrients and phytonutrients is an enormous reason for our current health crisis. As a society we put more attention to cardio, BMIs, a negative test or a sugar tax versus are we giving our bodies what they actually need to function. For my lifestyle clients and I, health is the continual process of becoming whole and balance. If your body doesn’t have the needed nutrients or there’s a nutrient and/or hormonal imbalance your health status, physical and cognitive capabilities, and your waistline can suffer. People are suffering with afflictions from arthritis to type two diabetics which can be preventable, through a healthy lifestyle. People squander their time, energy and money trying to lose weight and build muscle which can be obtained and sustained more effectively through a healthy lifestyle. From my experiences, for this lifestyle change to happen you have to change people’s perception of health, then from their experiences they can see the benefits. I don’t see how trying to punish people buying certain items correlates to a change in thinking to improving their health holistically.

I absolutely agree the consumption of sugar has many negative side effects, one of which being it can deplete you of certain nutrients making it harder for you to be whole, part of ‘our’ new definition of health. Reducing sugar consumption through a tax that only targets certain foods I can’t help but wonder where does it end? Honestly you can tax more, the average person is still going to buy it. They may grumble about the price but it will still end with a purchase. But let’s say this tax does prevent people from buying selected sodas/candies. What about juices, cereals and pastries which can have the same amount of sugar? What about trans fats, white flours, processed foods, GMO’s? There might be 0g of sugar in those but they can negatively affect your health. Are we now going to have a GMO tax, process food tax, trans fat tax, cookie tax? I view this as trying to plug up an old leaky pipe with Band-Aids. You might slow the first leak but other spots are still leaking. While you are working on those other leaks eventually that first Band-Aid is going to fall off. Wouldn’t it have been better just getting a new pipe. I read on the Bermuda government site that the money from the taxes, averaging about $10 million annually, goes to help promotion and disease prevention. I also hope it makes healthier foods more obtainable. If these taxes are going into programs that help make other foods cheaper, especially to lower income households, which are generally at higher risk of health issues that would be great. I personally would love to see to who and how the money is being distributed. I feel you wouldn’t need 10 million or even 5 million annually to make a real difference in Bermuda. 

I believe a holistic systematic educational approach along with affordable access to quality foods would be more beneficial than a sugar tax. My concern comes from hearing more about sugar taxes, but the people I talk to on a daily basis that are trying to get healthy have no idea what health really is or how to achieve it. We are still trying to cover leaks instead of replacing the pipe. I often ponder, how many lives have to be affected or lost before we decide we need a new system, a new way of thinking. Whether we are looking at racial equity, climate change or the health care system we cannot continue to make little tweaks to a massively failing system and expect real change in the here and now. A proper educational foundation, quality foods and to have people brave enough to be different and not follow the status quo will do us well. 

Be happy, be healthy.