BY STEVE JANOSKI
I've got to give New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg credit: the man's got…nerve.
I'm sure he knew the firestorm was coming last week when he announced his plan to combat obesity by banning the selling of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces at places like restaurants, movie theaters, and fast food places, and he went ahead with it anyway.
And, as was expected, the naysayers have sprung from the woodwork with a glut of "reasons" why this is an awful idea. It won't help, they claim, because people will buy the same amount of soda, just in smaller containers.
They say it's "Nanny Bloomberg" once again overstepping his bounds, and call it a restriction on personal choice, on freedom itself!
Relax. It's nothing of the sort.
Make no mistake about it: Bloomberg is doing nothing that's going keep you freedom-loving Americans from guzzling gallons of soda, thereby retaining that inalienable right to die slowly and painfully as a result of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and all the other illnesses associated with obesity.
What it is, however, is a public health initiative that's going to accomplish the same goal that his ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, and public parks has done over the past 10 years: make it exceedingly hard to ingest a thing that is truly, truly awful for you.
According to a recent New York Times report, a spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association — an arm of the soda industry's national trade group — criticized the city proposal, calling it a product of the NYC health department's "unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks."
"It's time for serious health professionals to move on and seek solutions that are going to actually curb obesity," said spokesman Stefan Friedman in the piece.
Right. Serious health professionals…you know, unlike the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, who blames sweetened drinks for up to half of the increase in obesity rates over the last three decades.
According to the article, the city reports that obesity rates are higher in neighborhoods where soda consumption is more common; this must be simply a coincidence, eh Mr. Friedman?
The brutal reality — which is a place where industry lobbyists for things like Big Tobacco and now Big Soda don't operate — is that over half of the adults in the Big Apple are either overweight or obese already.
But if you were a spokesman for an industry that sells sugary poison, why would you give any credence to that?
Let us be real about this: obesity is the greatest problem facing this country right now. You can live without a job, you can live without being able to read, you can live without knowing algebra, but you cannot live without your health.
This has nothing to do with vanity, and nothing to do with self-esteem: as one writer once put it, "Diabetes doesn't give a (expletive) about your self-esteem."
The health problems that fat people have (I often refuse to use that softening sobriquet "overweight") are amongst the most vicious, and when they come to fruition, they toss their weight onto the already-strained healthcare system, costing untold millions every year.
Obesity reduces life expectancy, and is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide. Yes, you read that right: eating too much and moving too little is a major, major problem for the entire world, and it's every bit as serious as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, or heroin.
And what do good governments do when citizens are massively addicted to such things? They take steps to curb that addiction. If half the population of NYC were out-of-control drinkers, there would be an outcry followed by proposals on how to fix it.
Back in 1965, the smoking rate in the U.S. was about 42 percent. As the decades went by, however, many governments (especially New York City's) began placing heavy taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and smoking. Miraculously, the rate began to drop.
Now, the smoking rate in New York is just 14 percent, 6 percent lower than the national average. In West Virginia, where few limits are placed on the habit, the rate is 26 percent. Clearly, America needs that same kind of societal shift in the way it views obesity, and needs to be aggressive in fighting it.
So don't think of this proposal as a case of the government overstepping its bounds… think of it as the government trying to be something of a good shepherd.
A shepherd that watches large cows instead of sheep… and is watching them eat, and eat, and eat until they vomit, only to keep eating after that, to the detriment of themselves and everything around them, until they literally drop dead.
And whether you agree with the exact tenet of the law or not, credit must be given to Bloomberg for moving on it. He is one of the few politicians willing to take a tough, unpopular stance on an issue that is affecting more and more Americans every day.
Maybe, when this law succeeds and eventually spreads to the rest of the country (as so many NYC health initiatives have), you can write him a letter and thank him because you were able to watch a whole movie without needing an insulin shot.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/157690925_First_volley_in_the_war_on_obesity_.html?page=all
I'm sure he knew the firestorm was coming last week when he announced his plan to combat obesity by banning the selling of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces at places like restaurants, movie theaters, and fast food places, and he went ahead with it anyway.
And, as was expected, the naysayers have sprung from the woodwork with a glut of "reasons" why this is an awful idea. It won't help, they claim, because people will buy the same amount of soda, just in smaller containers.
They say it's "Nanny Bloomberg" once again overstepping his bounds, and call it a restriction on personal choice, on freedom itself!
Relax. It's nothing of the sort.
Make no mistake about it: Bloomberg is doing nothing that's going keep you freedom-loving Americans from guzzling gallons of soda, thereby retaining that inalienable right to die slowly and painfully as a result of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and all the other illnesses associated with obesity.
What it is, however, is a public health initiative that's going to accomplish the same goal that his ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, and public parks has done over the past 10 years: make it exceedingly hard to ingest a thing that is truly, truly awful for you.
According to a recent New York Times report, a spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association — an arm of the soda industry's national trade group — criticized the city proposal, calling it a product of the NYC health department's "unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks."
"It's time for serious health professionals to move on and seek solutions that are going to actually curb obesity," said spokesman Stefan Friedman in the piece.
Right. Serious health professionals…you know, unlike the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, who blames sweetened drinks for up to half of the increase in obesity rates over the last three decades.
According to the article, the city reports that obesity rates are higher in neighborhoods where soda consumption is more common; this must be simply a coincidence, eh Mr. Friedman?
The brutal reality — which is a place where industry lobbyists for things like Big Tobacco and now Big Soda don't operate — is that over half of the adults in the Big Apple are either overweight or obese already.
But if you were a spokesman for an industry that sells sugary poison, why would you give any credence to that?
Let us be real about this: obesity is the greatest problem facing this country right now. You can live without a job, you can live without being able to read, you can live without knowing algebra, but you cannot live without your health.
This has nothing to do with vanity, and nothing to do with self-esteem: as one writer once put it, "Diabetes doesn't give a (expletive) about your self-esteem."
The health problems that fat people have (I often refuse to use that softening sobriquet "overweight") are amongst the most vicious, and when they come to fruition, they toss their weight onto the already-strained healthcare system, costing untold millions every year.
Obesity reduces life expectancy, and is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide. Yes, you read that right: eating too much and moving too little is a major, major problem for the entire world, and it's every bit as serious as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, or heroin.
And what do good governments do when citizens are massively addicted to such things? They take steps to curb that addiction. If half the population of NYC were out-of-control drinkers, there would be an outcry followed by proposals on how to fix it.
Back in 1965, the smoking rate in the U.S. was about 42 percent. As the decades went by, however, many governments (especially New York City's) began placing heavy taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and smoking. Miraculously, the rate began to drop.
Now, the smoking rate in New York is just 14 percent, 6 percent lower than the national average. In West Virginia, where few limits are placed on the habit, the rate is 26 percent. Clearly, America needs that same kind of societal shift in the way it views obesity, and needs to be aggressive in fighting it.
So don't think of this proposal as a case of the government overstepping its bounds… think of it as the government trying to be something of a good shepherd.
A shepherd that watches large cows instead of sheep… and is watching them eat, and eat, and eat until they vomit, only to keep eating after that, to the detriment of themselves and everything around them, until they literally drop dead.
And whether you agree with the exact tenet of the law or not, credit must be given to Bloomberg for moving on it. He is one of the few politicians willing to take a tough, unpopular stance on an issue that is affecting more and more Americans every day.
Maybe, when this law succeeds and eventually spreads to the rest of the country (as so many NYC health initiatives have), you can write him a letter and thank him because you were able to watch a whole movie without needing an insulin shot.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/157690925_First_volley_in_the_war_on_obesity_.html?page=all
No comments:
Post a Comment