NYC health board bans supersized drinks [General]

2012 Sep 13
The New York City Board of Health is taking an interesting approach to fighting obesity. They are putting a 16-ounce size limit on cups and bottles of soda and other sugary beverages from cafeterias, fast food joints, and other places that sell prepared foods. It doesn't include beverages sold in grocery stores. It also doesn't include water, soda, or juice.

Some New Yorkers feel that this is a government intrusion and they are circulating a petition. A soft drink industry group is considering a lawsuit.

More info is here: www.ottawacitizen.com

I guess the idea of teaching one's own children healthy choices no longer exists...

2012 Sep 14
It should be a choice. But some outlets need to stock more sugar free options.

2012 Sep 15
It is a choice. Want more soda, buy more soda. I think it's a great nudge approach to better health.

2012 Sep 15
"Just had a 32 oz soda. Now I want to try heroin."
- Steve Martin

2012 Sep 17
Interesting opinion from the Weighty Matters Blog on saying no. This was in relation to kids being offerred crap every day at a summer camp, but maybe it holds true for soda as well? Should people have to go out of their way to make unhealthy choices?

www.weightymatters.ca

"When looking at the societal overconsumption of empty calories by our children do you really want to hold onto the notion that it's consequent to an insufficient quantity of parental nos? Using my kids' experiences as an example - shouldn't we be striving as a society to ensure that the default changes such that if parents and kids want to consume daily junk food they need to consciously choose to go out of their way to do so"

2012 Sep 17
Coming from Mayor Daddy, no surprise. He also wanted free lunches in schools. Whether or not it gets the results he wants, he can still pat himself on the back.

2012 Sep 17
So free lunches in schools are a bad thing?

2012 Sep 17
I'm with Zym!

I think it's absurd to crack down on the size of a sugar beverage, it's not going to stop anyone from drinking Coca-Cola & it's hypocritical.

Why is it in America (it happens here in Canada as well) that a family of 4 can eat cheaper @ a fast food establishment 7 days a week than buying healthy alternatives & cooking meals @ home?

Terry


2012 Sep 17
'Why is it in America (it happens here in Canada as well) that a family of 4 can eat cheaper @ a fast food establishment 7 days a week than buying healthy alternatives & cooking meals @ home?'

Is that a serious question?

Economies of scale. A family of 25-35 million* could get some pretty sweet deals on beef, frozen fries and factory-bakery buns too.

* rough estimate of the number of McDonald's customers every day in North America; about 65 million globally.

2012 Sep 17
When people have proven no ability or willingness to act in their own best interest, then it's kind of incumbent upon government to do it for them. There's no reason they can't have as much sugary soda as they want, they just have to (as that site says) make a conscious effort to do so, rather than their default position being to purchase a single drink large enough to bathe in.

And to the argument that it's all about free choice and no-one else's business if they want to take the fast track to a diabetic coma, I'm all over your personal rights until they start impacting upon how much my healthcare costs, be it publicly or privately purchased. Everyone likes to bang on about their rights these days, but it's very rare that I hear anyone so keen to ensure that all of their responsibilities are as fastidiously observed. The two go hand in hand, and if people can't or won't fulfil their responsibilities then they don't get to enjoy their rights. Society, and individuals in it, need to grow the **** up. Stuff like this makes my blood boil.

2012 Sep 17
For once I agree with you, Johnny English! :-)

They should tax junk food (especially soda) the way they tax cigarettes and gasoline. And then they should use the tax revenue to offset healthcare costs incurred by people who eat a lot of junk.

One way or another, healthy food should hit our wallets less than unhealthy food. It's the only way to encourage people to eat what's good for them. Relying on education isn't enough.

2012 Sep 17
There is no such thing as an individual

Go sit on the surface of the moon and revel in your individualism if you think there is such a thing

And yeah, rights come with responsibilities

2012 Sep 17
If Mayor Dad spends his billions to provide a free lunch for New York kids to stroke his own ego, then he can knock himself out. Using other people's money to do so is quite another matter. He'll be surprised how many people suddenly pass the poverty test on the forms they submit (as many magically did when the program kicked off). After all, who doesn't want a free lunch?

2012 Sep 17
What are you talking about? How is the answer to food insecurity to feed less people?

2012 Sep 17
Thanks, FF. I want to see the warning labels (with requisite pictures) that they'll put on the side of each McDonald's extra-large pop container.

2012 Sep 17
Compare the cost of using "someone else's money" to buy a kid a lunch at school, versus the cost to buy that kid a lunch in prison later in life.

Discuss.

2012 Sep 17
This is where the lefty ideology falls apart, on the hypocrisy of its proponents. By all means, Zym and Johnny, feel free to sponsor these poor kids with your own money. Don't enlist the rest of us in your save- humanity crusade. Mayor Papa, champagne socialist extraordinaire, can do likewise.

FF, if you think the government will use this tax revenue to improve your health system, you're very naive. If that was the case, with all the smoke taxes, you think our system would be as decrepit as it is today? They'll only use the money for more busybody pie-in-the-sky projects. Remember: when the government discovers a new way to tax you, they don't eliminate the old way; they just tax you twice.

Johnny, the last century produced a lot of governments who professed to look after the citizens' 'best interests'. How did that turnout? Some of these regimes are still around. Feel free to move there to see first hand the glory of the state looking after your every need.

A government strong enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take away everything you have.

2012 Sep 17
So, if we cut through the usual meaningless right wing rhetoric, your plan is basically "if they're too poor to afford food then f*** them, they're not having my money"?

2012 Sep 17
If you are going to accuse me of hypocrisy please spell it out more completely because I do not see where you are actually completing that thought. You just throw the word out there but do not offer any justification to show where I am doing this.

"mine, mine, mine" - don't you see there is no such thing as "me"? I've already pointed this out in the simplest way possible but you still do not see it.

2012 Sep 17
If one could reason and argue with the far right, it would cease to exist.

2012 Sep 17
"the last century produced a lot of governments who professed to look after the citizens' 'best interests'. How did that turnout?"

Pretty well I'd say. I'd certainly rather be alive in 2012, rather than 1900, in most countries that I could name. The 'good old days' are often highly overrated.

...but perhaps you're trying to draw a straight line between 'free school lunches' and Stalin, or Pol Pot?

2012 Sep 18
The most interesting part of the debate is that the people screaming FREEDOM!!! are generally people who don't regularly buy 42 ounce things of pop. FREEDOM for the poor, overworked, and undereducated to get sick and die I guess.

This isn't just paternalism. It's balancing the field against a massive industry that's able to leverage advertising and thousands of years of evolution to poison people off a product with huge profit margins.

By all means Bacon, go to New York every day and buy your three 16oz Mountain Dews to make your silly libertarian point, but this regulation will probably save lives, so I can live with your outrage.

2012 Sep 18
Brian Mc, I get the supersize all the time, cause guess what: I can share it with 2-3 others, and it ends up being cheaper. By the way, you contradict yourself: you argue that the masses are undereducated but then you want to limit their pop size without considering educating them on the 'poison'. Could it be because you do-gooders know that the consumers know it's bad for them, but drink it anyway because (shockingly) they enjoy it? Ever hear of cognitive dissonance? Same for cigs.

Why not go all the way, and ban these things (cigarettes first and foremost) entirely to 'save lives' the way you presume banning, say, guns saves so many lives? Perhaps cause that puts the govt out of business.

You all should approach a poor family of your choice and tell them you'll give them money every month until they improve their situation. As they walk away muttering 'sucker' under their breath, plan to be their daddy for the long haul.

Hate to break it to you but (false) charity is not the answer (but if you insist, do it on your own dime). It only breeds cheats (see my earlier comment about how many people suddenly signed up for the free lunches but who were not poor). A guy who qualifies for subsidized housing or food stamps or welfare payments because he only makes $x/annum, what incentive does he have to get a job that will pay him $x +1? What have the billions that have gone to Africa over the decades accomplished?

It's all make-work so liberals can feel good about themselves. 'We tried, at least'.

One column I read on the free-lunch campaign described an ad on the subway equating the cost of a cup of latte to 12 or so sandwiches. The author instantly felt like a douche drinking his coffee and 'stealing food from the mouths of poor children'. Then he realized: what kind of useless (or freeloading) parents are these who can't put aside a couple of bucks that it takes to buy a coffee to feed their kid.

Dignity and freedom helps people. Not crutches and handouts. Not dependency, not slavery.

Milton Friedman said 'a society that puts equality before freedom will have neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will have much of both.'

Inkling, I wasn't saying 2012 is worse than 1900 (I don't know, and neither do you, after all we don't know anything about living in 1900). I meant how did those governments work out? The results speak for themselves. They collapsed under the weight of their oppression and violence against human nature. The barbarity of Pol Pot and Stalin and the myriad others are shrugged off by socialists as aberrations from a noble ideal, whereas in reality those things occurred only BECAUSE socialism was applied to the letter (violence and brutality are the essence of socialism, not a deviation).

PS Zym, can I use your 'There is no such thing as "ME" '? I have a feeling I can make billions selling t-shirts to spacy college kids and old pothead socialists (this can be the new Che). We'll split the profits 80 Zym-20 Bacon and, who knows, maybe we can run for mayor of NYC some day?

2012 Sep 19
Oh s#!*. Bacon IV is .... Ayn Rand!

Seriously though, if any of you think blind ideological extremism of any order is the answer to society's challenges you are at best intellectually lazy and at worse, sheltered and naive.

2012 Sep 19
After many years of futile attempts to hold a rational discussion with right wingers, I now just like to remind them that Jesus was a socialist who advocated feeding the poor, healing the sick and sharing his worldly possessions with those who had nothing. It tends to confuse them for long enough to make a get away.