Navajo Nation, NAU researchers study implementation of groundbreaking ‘unhealthy food’ tax

NAU NewsNAU News

By Kerry BennettOffice of the Vice President for ResearchHigh rates of overweight and obesity—as well as related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes—are serious public health concerns for the Navajo Nation. With more than 300,000 enrolled members in 110 chapters spread across 27,000 square miles in northeastern Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, it is one of the largest American Indian tribes in the U.S. The Indian Health Service estimates that 25,000 members of the Navajo have Type 2 diabetes and 75,000 are pre-diabetic.
To combat these problems, which health experts associate with overconsumption of soda, fat and processed foods and inadequate physical activity, Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly signed the Healthy Diné Nation Act (HDNA) into law in 2014, mandating a 2 percent tax on “unhealthy foods” purchased in the Navajo Nation.
The HDNA was designed to help change health behaviors by discouraging tribal members from purchasing high-fat and high-sugar food items with little or no nutritional value, including sweetened beverages, chips, candy, frozen desserts, pastries and fried foods. The law also was designed to promote the consumption of fresh produce and increased physical activity. It mandates that revenues generated by the sales tax be set aside for projects that improve community wellness, such as vegetable gardens, farmers markets, exercise equipment, health classes and walking trails.
Navajo Nation officials Del Yazzie, director of the Navajo Epidemiology Center (NEC), and Shirleen Jumbo-Rintila, legislative associate for the Navajo Division of Community Development (DCD), are working in a collaboration with faculty members of NAU’s Department of Health Sciences—professor Tim Behrens, associate professor Dirk de Heer and associate professor Priscilla Sanderson, who is director of NAU’s Center for American Indian Resilience—to study the implementation of the tax.
“Our understanding of the factors related to implementation of taxes such as these are crucial to developing policies that work,” Behrens said.
Although several cities have enacted sales taxes ...

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