Soda Ban &#8211; Who is Joining NYC Mayor Bloomberg?

Soda Ban – Who is Joining NYC Mayor Bloomberg?

Wednesday 1 August 2012 @ 1:05 am

Our original title for this post was titled ‘Who is Thanking NYC Mayor Bloomberg?’, but this week’s news and the new media coverage including the blogosphere coverage of the ‘Soda Ban Hearing’ made it a great time for a follow up. Check out Twitter results for #sodaban and you’ll know why.

Here’s a taste of the buzz:

Dr. Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at the New York University, tweeted a link to her blog Foodpolitics.com with a post on the coverage of the hearing together with an image which she believes “says it all”.

In the image, a young woman is seen wearing a t-shirt which says “I PICKED OUT MY BEVERAGE ALL BY MYSELF”—one that is being used by those who oppose the soda ban. And next to it, an image of the same woman, on to whose t-shirt someone has superimposed a new message in all caps: “And all I got was this lousy t-shirt, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, high blood pressure, obesity and tooth decay”.

Others shared similar sentiments and humour. “If the NYC soda ban becomes law, Sprite should market a NYC-only 16 oz. drink with 2x as much sugar as regular Sprite and call it “Spite”, tweeted Baylen Linnekin (@baylenlinnekin), executive director of food freedom nonprofit @keepfoodlegal.

Mark Bittman (@bittman), writer on food for New York Times and the author of How to Cook Everything tweeted that “Beverage Industry Fight Against Soda Ban Just Beginning,” with a link to an article in the Gotham Gazette bearing the same title. This is how the article begins, and it puts the whole protest against soda ban in context:

The trendsetting public health initiatives that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has successfully pushed – smoking bans in restaurants, bars and public places, as well as health inspection ratings – have been picked up across the country by dozens of other cities.

If beverage makers and retailers have their way, the Bloomberg administration’s next big idea to limit the size of sugary drinks sold to no more than 16 ounces won’t have that much fizz. What’s at stake for them is not merely consumer choice but the possibility that the soda ban will start a trend that will sweep through the country.

In other words, the push against the ban, portrayed as an issue of freedom, is not really about freedom. It is about keeping market shares and profits intact. It is about making money; and who cares about your health if you are an unwitting consumer?

In case you missed the original furor, it all began with a very powerful image: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg standing in front of a line of soda cups, arranged from the smallest to the largest, with sugar cubes in front of each to indicate how much sugar is contained in each.

On July 23^rd,when the mayor-appointed Board of Health which is charged with making the decision on whether to pass the regulation, held its only public hearing on the soda ban, about 60 people spoke expressing their support or opposition on the ban. It was the reporting on the hearing and the reactions that prompted this post.

Even up to the moment of the hearing, the administration was pushing for the ban on multiple fronts.

A press release on the hearing day was titled: “Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Gibbs, 1199SEIU President Gresham and Health Commissioner Farley Continue Push for Anti-Obesity Proposal Day Before Public Hearing”. It mentioned that the city’s largest health care union, the 1199SEIU, backs the plan and reminded the readers that “Obesity is 2nd Leading Cause of Preventable Death, Killing 5,800 New Yorkers Annually.”

In it Mayor Bloomberg explained why he is pushing the soda ban and fighting the obesity epidemic. “Six years ago, naysayers called the transfat ban ‘a misguided attempt at social engineering by a group of physicians who don’t understand the restaurant industry,’” said Mayor Bloomberg. “This week, we saw evidence that the ban is reducing New Yorkers’ fat intake and potentially saving lives. Six years from now, hopefully we are celebrating a reversal in the obesity epidemic currently killing 5,800 New Yorkers a year and due to our plan to limit the size of sugary beverages and other anti-obesity initiatives.”

So are you into super size drinks? Do you see the issue as a matter of nanny-state dictating life choices or of a concerned government trying to do public good?

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