This post is about Australia.
You do have a seriously inequitable food system in the US. This is a sad and unnecessary situation.
Studies tend to show that sugary drink taxes do have some effect on better health outcomes. For example<
It is the poor who bear the brunt of ill health in large part due to only being able to afford cheap, bad-quality processed food. Sweetening the poison only adds more poison. Stand up for clean water in the US which you have problems with too:
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/americas-failing-drinking-water-system