The global prevalence of obesity in school-aged children and adolescents quadrupled from 1990 to 2022. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a major source of added sugars and robust evidence links the consumption of SSBs to obesity and its complications. Policymakers around the globe search for strategies to tackle obesity and taxes on SSBs are implemented in many countries for this purpose. However, less than a handful of studies have analyzed the effects of beverage taxes on the prevalence of obesity and results have been modest, at best. In this issue of JAMA Pediatrics, Gregory et al present data on pediatric weight outcomes in children living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after introducing the Philadelphia beverage tax in 2017 on both SSBs and artificially sweetened beverages. The authors concluded that the beverage tax did not change the weight status of the children in Philadelphia compared with children living in surrounding counties with no such tax.