Beverage consumption among adults in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada prior to the implementation of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Lawmakers in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) recently passed Canada's first sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax. SSB tax evaluations rely on detailed understandings of beverage consumption patterns prior to policy implementation, but there is no recent literature about such patterns among NL residents during the pre-tax period. METHODS: We recruited a convenience sample of NL adults ages 19 and older and measured participant characteristics via online surveys and beverage intake via previously-validated, semi-quantitative beverage frequency questionnaires. We generated inverse probability weights of sample selection using the Canadian Census as a representative reference sample. We described the weighted prevalence and intake among consumers of taxable SSBs (e.g., regular pop), non-taxable SSBs (e.g., sweetened milk), diet (non-nutritive sweetened) beverages and unsweetened beverages (including 100% juice). We explored weighted bivariate associations between consumption of beverages and sociodemographic characteristics identified as potential correlates of SSB intake. RESULTS: The sample (n = 1233) was 65% female, 57% between ages 30-59 years, and nearly all (94%) white. More than half (57.3%) consumed taxable SSBs weekly, and 23.2% consumed non-taxable SSBs weekly. The most-consumed (highest volume) taxable SSB was regular pop (weighted mean (SD) 2.3 (3.5) L/week); the most-consumed non-taxable SSB was sweetened, flavoured milk (mean (SD) 1.2 2.0) L/week). We found independent differences in consumption patterns (prevalence, mean intake among consumers) across each beverage category. People who were younger, had fewer years of education, reported income below the poverty threshold, or reported experiencing food insecurity had a higher prevalence and mean intake among consumers of taxable SSBs. People with fewer years of education or those who reported experiencing food insecurity had a lower prevalence and mean intake among consumers of unsweetened beverages. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings align with prior studies of socioeconomic position and SSB consumption in Canada, which collectively demonstrate that, on average, those with less education and income consume more SSBs and fewer unsweetened beverages. This research provides necessary understanding of social patterning of beverage consumption in NL prior to tax implementation. Post-tax evaluations of this policy should investigate potential impacts of the tax on diet and health equity, as well as potential beverage substitutions towards other beverage categories.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".