Behind Super-Sized Sodas, a Deeper Danger

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Behind Super-Sized Sodas, a Deeper Danger
June 2, 2012

Sugary soft drinks, as Michael Bloomberg reminds us, do our nation no good. But if we really want to narrow our waistbands, we’re going to have to narrow the income gaps that divide us.

By Sam Pizzigati


The billionaire mayor of New York wants his city’s Board of Health to ban super-sized servings of sodas and other sugar-packed drinks.

Some 58 percent of New Yorkers, explains mayor Michael Bloomberg, currently rate as either overweight or obese. Their excess pounds are driving up the city’s health care costs, he argues, and even putting lives at jeopardy.

“Obesity,” the mayor told a national TV audience last week, “will kill more people than smoking in the next couple of years.”

Maybe so, his critics counter, but no ban on super-sized sodas is going to fix that obesity. Any ban, the critics contend, would be unenforceable. And why pick on soda and not chocolate cake? Or any other “fattening food”? ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/behind-super-sized-sodas-a-deeper-danger/

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. sugar craving = protein and other nutritional deficiencies

[KurtNYC]

2. "Let them NOT eat cake." n/t

[Eddie Haskell]

3. Never make a step in the right direction

a point of contention.

[Igel]

4. Some strange assumptions.

Heavy into correlation.

And it assumes that only social inequality (which must be equivalent to economic equality) produces the kind of stress that leads to bad diets.

Don't know about that. A friend worked for a couple of executives as a nanny. Her income was low; she had less stress than her bosses, each of which made in the high 6 digits. They left the house every day by 6:30 to commute an hour to NYC with time for accidents. They'd work until 6 or 7 pm. They faced competition at work from subordinates; pressure from above to perform even better; and their companies were also in cutthroat competition with other firms.

Often they had to work weekends. And their reward for their nice high-powered jobs in the City, their nice cars, their annual bonuses that are 10x or more my annual salary, and having a house in a very exclusive old-wealth neighborhood was to watch their little kids cry when they wanted to take her to the park and leave behind their nanny--who woke them in the morning, fed them, played with them, nursed them when they were sick, took them out, etc.