Kids don’t know the value of a dollar, so it’s unlikely that a small sales tax on soda will deter them from guzzling down the sugary drinks, according to new study findings published in the journal Health Affairs and reported by HealthDay News.

For the study, researchers analyzed the differences in current state sales taxes on sodas and examined information about the soda consumption habits of 7,300 kids registered in the nationwide Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.

Scientists detected no important association between soda consumption or weight gain and the taxes (called differential soda taxes).

Currently, differential soda taxes average 3.5 percent; none exceeds 7 percent. At those percentages, researchers said, children continued drinking up.

“If the goal is to noticeably reduce soda consumption among children, then it would have to be a very substantial tax,” said Roland Sturm, the study’s lead author and a senior economist at the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research firm.

When children had to pay higher soda taxes, researchers said, it did seem to lessen soda consumption and weight gain among those at the highest risk of obesity (overweight kids, those in low-income families, TV addicts and black children).

For kids to feel the money crunch and translate that into giving up sugary drinks, Sturm said, legislators should impose a price-raising excise tax that children see reflected in soda prices on store shelves.

For more about the soda tax’s history, click here.