Statistics from the West Virginia Bureau of Public Health say that about a third of our residents are considered obese and even more are considered overweight. Being overweight has been tied to a host of health problems, including arthritis, cancers, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure—it’s a long list. The agency also says that about one in three children born in West Virginia today will likely develop diabetes by the time they grow up. People who develop Type 2 diabetes die younger than the rest of the population—young people who develop the disease often die in early middle age.

 The West Virginia Board of Education also says that, “Countless research shows children with poor nutrition score lower on vocabulary, reading, math and general knowledge tests.”

 Since nothing makes people fat like soda pop, cutting soft drinks from schools seems like a good place to start on the path to a healthier West Virginia.

 Nearly half of all West Virginia public schools—including those in Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan—have banned the sale of sodas during the school day. This raises the question: What’s up with the other half?

 Chronic and life-threatening illnesses caused by bad behavior are a major part of rising health insurance costs, say insurance industry officials. Tobacco use and bad diet, along with other unhealthy habits like sitting around watching hours of television, make health insurance more expensive for everyone—and it drives up the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

 Lifestyle illnesses, a.k.a., illnesses brought on by personal behavior, compete with “over utilization” and end-of-life care as the leading factors in health insurance costs. There are a lot of factors behind over-utilization: doctors ordering diagnostics at facilities they own, doctors ordering diagnostic to avoid being sued, parents who insist on treatments that are not prescribed by the standard of care. And there are sensitive social issues surrounding end-of-life care: a huge percentage of Medicare spending goes to adding an extra month to the lives of elderly terminally-ill patients, usually causing the patients themselves unnecessary suffering.

 There is a way to reduce obesity in West Virginia and provide additional resources for the much need health care reform that is being debated on the national stage right now.

 The solution, a tax on soda drinks, is exactly what some members of Congress have proposed. There already are taxes on tobacco, they say, so adding one for soft drinks—and directing all the money from both toward healthcare—could help offset some of the costs of any reforms coming down the pike.

 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a three-cent tax on soda drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years. A sizable chunk of change, to be sure, but a small piece of figuring out how to pay for health insurance reforms.

 As the debate over health care reform heats up this autumn, we encourage members of Congress to consider the obesity epidemic  in West Virginia, and consider a viable solution of tying the cause of illness to the cost of treating it: a tax on sodas