Objective: To examine changes in the proportions of daily, weekly and occasional consumers of sugar-sweetened soda in six European countries that introduced/updated a tax between 2001-2002 and 2017-2018 and in neighbouring comparison countries (without a tax).
Design: Repeated cross-sectional surveys.
Setting: Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, spanning five survey years (school years 2001-2002 to 2017-2018).
Participants: Nationally representative samples of 13-year- and 15-year-old adolescents (n 236 623, 51·0 % girls).
Results: Tax sizes (€0·02/l to €0·22/l) and pre-tax soda consumption were heterogeneous across countries. Prevalence of daily soda consumption reduced in the survey year following tax implementation in Latvia (from 17·9 to 11·9 %, P = 0·01), Finland (4·2 to 2·5 %, P = 0·001), Belgium (35·1 to 27·8 %, P < 0·001) and Portugal (17·4 to 14·9 %, P = 0·02), but not in Hungary (29·8 to 31·3 %, P = 0·47) or France (29·4 to 28·2 %, P = 0·27). However, reductions were similar (Finland) or smaller (Belgium, Portugal) than those in the comparison countries, except in Latvia where the reduction was larger (Pinteraction < 0·001). Prevalence of weekly soda consumption remained stable (Finland, Hungary and France) or increased (Latvia, Belgium); only Portugal experienced a decline (P < 0·001), which was larger than in the comparison country (Pinteraction < 0·001). Prevalence of occasional soda consumption (<1x/week) did not rise after implementation of the tax in Latvia, Finland, Hungary, France or Belgium, or the rise was similar to the comparison country in Portugal (Pinteraction = 0·15).
Conclusions: Countries with a soda tax did not experience larger beneficial changes in post-tax adolescent consumption frequency of soda than comparison countries. Further studies, with different taxation types, are needed in the adolescent population.
Keywords: Adolescents; FFQ; HBSC study; Sugar-sweetened beverages; Sugar-sweetened soda; Sugary drink tax; Trends.