On September 13, the Board of Health of New York City passed a ban on the sale of large sodas over 16 ounces, to take effect in March, 2013. The regulation is set to limit the consumption of non-diet sodas, sweet teas and other heavily caloric beverages. The ban will not apply to water, diet soda or unsweetened teas. It will also not apply to natural herbal sugar substitutes such as anise, cinnamon and stevia, which are sold at most health food stores. Beverages sold in convenience stores and supermarkets are also excluded. At bottom, soda manufacturers do have a good alternative to substitute sugar for herbal preparations that do not have the same penalty as sugar in raising glucose levels to abnormal highs.
New Yorkers for Beverage Choices has opposed the ban and may seek legal action against the City of New York to lift it. If the ban is litigated, the initial decision of the lower court may be examined on appeal according to an "arbitrary and capricious standard" which means that the finding of a lower court will not be disturbed by a higher court unless it has no rational basis. The argument of New Yorkers for Beverage Choices is that business owners and restaurants in particular may be hurt financially by the ban. That may be true; however, people in opposition to the ban must consider the alarming level of childhood diabetes in NYC and elsewhere.
Diabetes isn't the only problem. There are other issues, such as childhood morbid obesity, gross imbalances in the blood chemistry and damage to vital internal organs like the liver. Examples of these imbalances would be the glucose level and the A1C rolling average indicator as reported on standard blood tests.
Article comments
1 - Doug Hunter
The government is responsible for your health, the government owns your body.
Predictable, but that's what the majority wants... a nanny state.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Yeah, it was a Real Bad Thing for it to be made law to wear seat belts, or to smoke where it wouldn't cause harm to other people (and it was the right wing that opposed such laws). And who cares if we the taxpayers have to pay through the nose for the diabetes that people get from imbibing WAY too much sugar.
It's funny how right-wingers are so adamant about wrong it is for the government to spend their tax dollars to help the poor, but when it comes to the government passing laws that would SAVE tax dollars by keeping Americans healthier, well, THAT's just unAmerican!
3 - Doug Hunter
#2
Pretty much yes. Some of us don't enjoy being the government's bitch. Have you lost all sense of self or does even the contrarian have a line. Would it be OK for the government to ban or highly tax meat? What about an outright ban on suger... as you stated it caused health problems? Lots of skin cancer could be eliminated if beaches were forbidden, not to mention drowning an shark attacks. Speaking of drowning, we should get rid of swimming pools and bathtubs while we're at it to save the thousands of people that drown in them. What price is showering over bathing if it saves a few lives?
See, it's not hard to be an uber-duber super progressive. Once you lose all regard for freedom there's no limit to the things you can change in the name of safety. The difference between you and I, is that just because I choose a set of values I don't believe mine should be written into law to force you to fall in line.
Sadly, you can't say the same.
4 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Ultimately, Mayor Bloomberg will prevail in the lower courts and the United States Supreme Court
because the NYC Health Department has the exclusive responsibility for the health of the general
public. Jurists give a lot of deference to responsibility centers because the people there are accountable
for the decisions they make.
Having said that, the morbid obesity is becoming a freakish problem for the city. Many children are
developing mega-bellies and the childhood diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate. The mayor had
to do something to try to reverse the trend because the public health hazzard and the costs to
Medicaid are getting out of control.
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Doug -
According to the NYC law, you can still drink just as much soda as you want - you simply can't buy it in the form of 44oz Super Big Gulps. You can, however, buy three 16oz sodas if that's what you really want.
What NYC is doing is simply discouraging doing that which is not good for us...which is the same reason there's so many taxes on cigarettes, and America's smoking rate is now down to 20%...unlike in nations in Asia where the cigarettes are much cheaper, and the rate is much higher.
Two months ago Monday I watched my mother die, with brown stuff filling her mouth and running down her cheeks as she essentially drowned - her body had given up and she was in hospice care at the time. I was holding her hands as she passed. Cigarettes killed her - she'd tried so many times to quit, but she just couldn't do it - the addiction was too strong. Cigarettes killed her and killed my uncle - the last time I talked to him, he had to hang up because he was too weak to hold the phone to his ear.
Diabetes killed my grandfather. My brother is diabetic, and it has cost him his lower left leg. He is having a big problem being compliant with the diabetic diet, and I know all too well where it goes from there. My oldest son is morbidly obese, and he just can't seem to stop himself from eating too much, all the time. He may yet outlive me - I hope so much that he does - but I'm deeply worried about him.
Doug, there's an epidemic of diabetes in America - and it's costing us dearly not only on a personal level, but when it comes to our tax dollars too. Maybe you think it's "freedom" to be able to do what you want, but there IS such a thing as too much freedom, where being able to do what we want comes at too high a price. I'm losing so many members of my family because they got to eat as much as they want, smoke what they want, drink what they want.
There are freedoms which are wonderful to have and are worth the blood shed to defend, Doug - like the freedoms to vote, to speak one's mind, to go whither one will, when one wants to do so. But some of what you call freedoms, when they result in so much unnecessary death and heartbreak, are not freedoms worth defending.
6 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
The endocrinologist is the doctor of choice for diabetes related manifestations.