Michael Bloomberg, the anti-trans fat,
anti-smoking, anti-obesity mayor of New York City has just declared war
on the Big Gulp. If the city’s health board, whose members the mayor
appoints, approves Mayor Bloomberg’s rule, no one in the five boroughs
of New York will be allowed to purchase a soda larger than 16 ounces.
The regulation would extend to restaurants, bodegas, movie theaters,
food carts on the street and at entertainment venues. Will this make New
Yorkers skinnier? Sadly, no.
Mayor Bloomberg claims the rule is not intended to stop free choice. You can buy soda and you can buy as many as you wish. If you want to drink a gallon at one sitting you still can but you will have to do it in 16-ounce increments. The mayor and his advisors believe that this will build in self-awareness and make people realize just how much they are consuming. Self-awareness is a big step in curbing overeating. We give the mayor credit for that, but he is targeting one food, and soda, by itself, did not produce our obesity epidemic. What’s next, oversize-muffins, large candy bars, family-size sugared cereal boxes, triple-scoop ice cream cones?
Don’t get me wrong I am no fan of soda. And, I think by-and-large Mayor Bloomberg has done a good job for the city. I also know, and have written in this column before, that liquid calories are different than calories from solid food. We process them differently, they seduce us to drink more than we should, and they often are the tipping point to adding more calories than we need each day. Nonetheless, soda is just one of the many facets of the complicated obesity picture. Even the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the foremost advocate of healthy eating in the US, released a statement saying all foods fit into a healthy eating plan and there is no evidence to show food regulations, like the proposed soda ban, create positive health outcomes.
The real driver of obesity in this nation is the volume of food available. As a nation we produce too much food and it’s cheap. Recently, food costs have risen, but we still spent less than 10% of our total income on food, down from 23% in the late 1920s.
Read more: http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/food%20columnist0/It_Isn_t_The_Soda_And_It_Isn_t_The_Size.shtml
Mayor Bloomberg claims the rule is not intended to stop free choice. You can buy soda and you can buy as many as you wish. If you want to drink a gallon at one sitting you still can but you will have to do it in 16-ounce increments. The mayor and his advisors believe that this will build in self-awareness and make people realize just how much they are consuming. Self-awareness is a big step in curbing overeating. We give the mayor credit for that, but he is targeting one food, and soda, by itself, did not produce our obesity epidemic. What’s next, oversize-muffins, large candy bars, family-size sugared cereal boxes, triple-scoop ice cream cones?
Don’t get me wrong I am no fan of soda. And, I think by-and-large Mayor Bloomberg has done a good job for the city. I also know, and have written in this column before, that liquid calories are different than calories from solid food. We process them differently, they seduce us to drink more than we should, and they often are the tipping point to adding more calories than we need each day. Nonetheless, soda is just one of the many facets of the complicated obesity picture. Even the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the foremost advocate of healthy eating in the US, released a statement saying all foods fit into a healthy eating plan and there is no evidence to show food regulations, like the proposed soda ban, create positive health outcomes.
The real driver of obesity in this nation is the volume of food available. As a nation we produce too much food and it’s cheap. Recently, food costs have risen, but we still spent less than 10% of our total income on food, down from 23% in the late 1920s.
Read more: http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/food%20columnist0/It_Isn_t_The_Soda_And_It_Isn_t_The_Size.shtml
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