Dive Brief:
- The Navajo Nation has passed a soda and junk food tax, known as the Healthy Diné Nation Act, to combat obesity and diabetes rates in the 250,000 member community while also making produce more affordable for residents.
- As of April 1, junk food and soda will carry an extra 2-cent sales tax on top of the 5-cent sales tax already in place on most goods sold in the community. Also, all produce in the community has been tax-free since October.
- No concrete numbers are available as of yet in terms of how much money this new tax will generate by 2020, but Denisa Livingston, a spokeswoman for Diné Community Advocacy Alliance, predicts it could be as much as $3 million a year.
Dive Insight:
One of the primary issues this nation faces is that it is a food desert. Residents have few places to shop for food, and in those places, unhealthy foods may comprise about 90% of a store's inventory. With such a lack of produce and other healthy foods, the Navajo Nation reports obesity rates ranging from 23% to 60% as well as a diabetes rate of 10%, and another 30% of residents are pre-diabetic.
San Francisco and Berkeley, CA, have both attempted to implement their own soda taxes, and even though Berkeley's did pass in November, the Navajo Nation's act takes this initiative one step further by including junk food as well. Such taxes have received vehement arguments against them from beverage companies and most recently a lawmaker from New York.