Bloomberg's big-soda ban is still effective!
Win or lose, a vociferous debate serves to educate the public about just how unhealthy soda consumption is, and how it is contributing to the obesity epidemic.
Bloomberg’s big-soda ban is still effective!
Michael Yudell, Associate Professor, Drexel University School of Public Health
I am of two minds on the court decision Monday striking down the New York City Board of Health’s ban on the sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces one day before it was to kick in. I applaud both the judge’s ruling and the mayor’s resolve.
The ban was declared “arbitrary and capricious” by New York State Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling, whose ruling called attention to the ban’s loopholes, which “effectively defeat the stated purpose of the Rule.” Judge Tingling was referring to the fact that the ban limited sales at some locations (restaurants, movie theaters, and food trucks) and not others (corner convenience stores and supermarkets), that some sugary drinks were included and not others, and that there were no limitations on refills of smaller cups. The judge also ruled that the city Board of Health exceeded its powers in passing the ban. That power, Tingling argued, should lie with New York’s City Council.
Mayor Bloomberg has promised to appeal, calling the ruling “totally wrong.”
On the one hand, I applaud the court. The ban was public health at its worst — a potentially disaffecting policy that lacked compelling evidence of benefits that might justify it.
Yes, there is absolutely no nutritional reason for consumers to drink such an obscene amount of soda in one sitting. And, yes, there is strong evidence that soda consumption is playing a significant role in the obesity epidemic.
But . . . if public officials are going to limit consumer choice, they ought to have at least some data to show that a sugary drink purchase ban, however constructed, will actually have an effect on obesity rates. There is often some degree of paternalism in the work of public health officials — they are, after all, sometimes telling people what is best for them, against what they believe, mistaken as it can be. Polices that are light on evidence, like the prohibition on big sodas, risk alienating the very public it is our mission to serve.
Public health officials and scientists should be motivated by this ruling, and quickly develop more evidence-based policies to curb the obesity epidemic. Some policies seem to be working. Here in Philadelphia the childhood obesity rate declined nearly 5 percent between 2006 and 2010. Experts attribute the decline partially to city policies removing soda machines from schools and serving free, healthier breakfasts to all students in city schools.
On the other hand, we should all stand behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s steely resolve in his fight against the obesity epidemic, which is, of course, also a fight against the corporations that push unhealthy products on us and the lobbyists and politicians that shill for them. Bloomberg’s public health record has been extraordinary — the mayor’s anti-tobacco policies banning smoking from New York’s bars and in its parks, its trans fat ban, and requirements to list calories on menus are all significant victories for the public’s health. Philadelphia quickly followed New York’s lead (and exceeded it with a more comprehensive menu-labeling law), and many other communities came along. Menu labeling is now federal law, although the details are still being written.
I suspect that Mayor Bloomberg has had a plan B up his sleeve all along, and a shrewd one at that. It is entirely possible, in fact, that he orchestrated this course of events. He may have suspected that the ban would not necessarily stand, but that by drawing the soda industry and its allies into this fight he would create a heck of a lot of noise on the subject. His experimental policy could, and might still, serve as a model for other cities.
And, win or lose, a vociferous debate serves to educate the public about just how unhealthy soda consumption is for us all and how it is contributing to the obesity epidemic. That is one way to create behavior change. Pretty clever; and great politics and public health, if you ask me.
I suspect we’ll see more from our nation’s Public Health Mayor. Your move again, Mayor Bloomberg.
Read more about The Public's Health.
Who asked you?— factsarestubbornthings- At least maybe this will bring attention to the issue.... and discourage people to be fat, gluttonous slobs. How can you sit there with a freakin' 32oz bucket of soda, and not be embarrassed?
— road515 - A few weeks ago the New York Times ran an article called "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food".
It’s 14 pages long, but this eye-opening article on the science of addictive junk food, published in the New York Times last Wednesday, is well worth a read. It touches on the growing obesity epidemic, and why we need to teach children to eat nutritiously, as well as the marketing tactics of companies such as Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble and General Mills.
Some of the facts presented were frightening enough to cause any reader to shy away from eating these products ever again. Here are just some of the haunting facts Moss points out in the article:
...Cheetohs have a “vanishing caloric density” effect which causes your brain to think there are no calories in what you’re eating, so you continue eating those melty cheesy straws forever
if you take Lunchables apart, the healthiest item in the box is the napkin.
— ald - Ald wrote, "if you take Lunchables apart, the healthiest item in the box is the napkin."
LOL! Beautiful! :> Be careful though: they're liable to start packaging them with chocolate-coated napkins!
- MJM— Michael J. McFadden -1.jpg)
His face looks simple. A very evil man. Another Koch Brothers buddy and fellow sociopath. His cops murdered a sixteen year-old in East Flatbush and now he refuses to let them media in to cover it or they will be arrested. The same way he did to the peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters. He is a lot like Hitler, which is so ironic. I guess HE forgot. Isn't that sad? He needs to go.- How much has Bloomberg dumped on you? Bloomberg is addicted to self righteousness.— Paul Deon
- Sure. More corporate media propaganda here. "Hail, Bloomberg!" Don't believe this bull.
- I appreciate the concern but this is a failure on many levels:
1. People can buy 2 small or medium drinks.
2. People still drink whatever they want at home and work and everywhere else.
3. There are people who can drink large sodas and not have adverse health effects so they shouldn't be punished.
4. There are too many more important things to worry about.— Phillies2008WSChamps - How come they are covering a failed soda dictatorship but ignoring the murder of a kid in Flatbush, Bklyn. and all the protests nightly since it happened the past weekend? Dozens of people have been arrested and cops were injured as of last night. Isn't that more important than SODA in NYC?
- Joyce
I take it you're representing the soda companies.
Regrets about what happened in Flatbush, but that's one person.
Bloomberg is talking about millions.
So quit defending the poisonous sodas.— ald 
Comment removed.- Larry Cheswald
You're right, people do need tools to learn how to eat.
You are watching your health insurance and medical bills go up; yes yours because you're subsidizing bad habits, whether it's smoking or drinking or eating.— ald - Until the government does the right thing by giving all of its citizens access to free healthcare, I don't think Bloomberg speaking on behalf of his friends in the private health sector should be talking about being concerned with the health of the public at all.
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- He looks like a fossil with that drooping neck skin. I'm sure he's had his fair share of Big Gulps. He needs to go into a nursing home and leave young people alone with his dictator ways.
- His ears are so long like they belong to a rabbit.
