Instructor Notes

See the Additional Resources for Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing and reading comprehension quizzes for this chapter.

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21

Junk Food: Should the Government Regulate Our Intake?

In the summer of 2012, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City made a proposal to severely restrict the sale of certain kinds of drinks. In September 2012, it was approved by the New York City Board of Health and scheduled to go into effect in 2013. Here is the gist of Bloomberg’s thinking:

Sugary drinks — here defined as those with twenty-five or more calories per eight-ounce serving — if consumed in large quantities unquestionably contribute to obesity. It is therefore desirable to discourage the consumption of large amounts of these drinks.

Ban the sale — in delis, fast-food franchises, and street stands — of bottles containing more than sixteen fluid ounces of such drinks.

Larger bottles would be available at grocery stores and convenience stores.

Other kinds of drinks, such as fruit drinks, diet sodas, dairy-based drinks (e.g., milk shakes), and alcoholic beverages, would not be restricted.

In short, this proposal was a ban only on selling large containers of certain kinds of drinks in certain kinds of places. And even in the restricted places, consumers could buy any number of the smaller bottles, so the determined consumer could indeed get more than sixteen ounces if he or she wanted to, though at the cost of some inconvenience.

On March 11, 2013, the day before the law was to go into effect, Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of the New York State Supreme Court struck down the ban, saying that it was “arbitrary and capricious.” Examples of the alleged arbitrariness were (1) the ban did not apply to dairy-based sugary drinks such as milk shakes, and (2) it would be enforced in restaurants, delicatessens, theaters, and food-carts but not in convenience stores and bodegas. Do these examples strike you as “arbitrary”?

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ANONYMOUS EDITORIAL, NEW YORK TIMES

This editorial was published on June 1, 2012. We follow it with two letters, both published on June 2, 2012.

A Ban Too Far

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has done a lot to help improve the health of New York City residents. Smoking is outlawed in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. Trans fat is banned in restaurants. Chain restaurants are required to post calorie counts, allowing customers to make informed choices.

Mr. Bloomberg, however, is overreaching with his new plan to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than sixteen ounces. He argues that prohibiting big drinks at restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, and other food sellers can help combat obesity. But as he admits, customers can get around the ban by purchasing two drinks.

The administration should be focusing its energies on programs that educate and encourage people to make sound choices. For example, obesity rates have declined slightly among students in elementary and middle schools, with the city’s initiatives to make lunches healthier with salad bars, lower-calorie drinks, and water fountains in cafeterias. Requiring students to get more exercise has also helped.

The city should keep up its tough anti-obesity advertising campaigns —one ad shows that it takes walking from Union Square to Brooklyn to burn off the calories from a twenty-ounce soda. The mayor has also started adult exercise programs and expanded the program for more fresh produce vendors around the city.

5 Promoting healthy lifestyles is important. In the case of sugary drinks, a regular reminder that a sixty-four-ounce cola has 780 calories should help. But too much nannying with a ban might well cause people to tune out.

Letters of Response by Gary Taustine and Brian Elbel

To the Editor:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s effort to promote healthier lifestyles is commendable, but the government has no right whatsoever to go beyond promotion to enforcement. You can’t reduce obesity with smaller cups any more than you can reduce gun violence with smaller bullets.

This proposal sets a very bad, very dangerous precedent. Freedom is rarely taken away in supersize amounts; more typically it is slowly siphoned off drop by drop so people don’t even notice until they’ve lost it entirely.

Mayor Bloomberg has spent his eleven years in office stripping away our freedoms one drop at a time. Minorities are stopped and frisked, Muslims are watched, protesters are silenced, and smokers are taxed and harassed beyond reason.

In their apathy, New Yorkers have given the mayor an inch and he has already taken a mile. If we permit him to regulate portion control without a fight, then we don’t deserve the few freedoms we have left.

GARY TAUSTINE

New York, June 1, 2012

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To the Editor:

Re “A Ban Too Far” (editorial, June 1):

To focus on education when discussing solutions to obesity misunderstands the scientific evidence about what can alter our staggering statistics and what manifestly cannot.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to restrict the sale of large sugar-sweetened beverages changes the food environment — the places where foods and beverages are bought. The best science affirms that this is exactly the approach that could curb obesity trends. This same science indicates that education-based approaches, which also have their place, will do much less by comparison.

That sugary beverages contribute to obesity is clear. The science also tells us that changing the default beverage choice to something smaller could induce people to consume just that smaller beverage rather than deal with the cost and hassle of buying and carrying two or more.

Time and further research will tell. But the continued focus on simply informing and educating consumers is doomed to failure and diminishes this important policy and the influence it could have on obesity.

BRIAN ELBEL

New York, June 1, 2012

The writer is an assistant professor of population health and health policy at the New York University School of Medicine.

Topic for Critical Thinking and Writing

Draft a letter to the newspaper expressing your support or disapproval —full or in part — of the position taken in the editorial. In your letter you may, if you wish, include a comment about either or both of the published letters of response.