By Alyck Horton
Grown adults aren’t responsible enough to make wise consumer choices for themselves; therefore, the government is entitled to restrict what its people can purchase if it’s in their best interest.
Suraj Nair/VANGUARD STAFf
Let that sink in for a minute: The government deciding what’s in your best interest and controlling what you can buy.
That doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
This is what Mayor Bloomberg, along with the New York City Board of Health, has successfully done in NYC.
The ban, which takes effect in March, restricts a single serving size of sugary drinks, namely soda, to 16 ounces, or about a half a can with ice. It doesn’t include diet beverages or products that are at least 50 percent milk or milk substitute.
As someone who typically doesn’t drink soda, the size isn’t what bothers me. What does bother me is the government poaching the rights of individual consumers and small, private businesses.
I admire Mayor Bloomberg on a personal level: He’s done exponentially more than any other major politician by actually trying to create a solution to America’s obesity problem. In a city with a
McDonald’s on virtually every corner, Manhattan isn’t a terrible place to try something like this.
The city’s plan, with all of its great intentions, is a bit haphazard. It’s like they had this grand idea, and then when it came to fruition they sort of just made shit up as they went along.
For example, restaurants are allowed to refill the 16-ounce sodas as many times as they’d like. Effectively, the only thing that will change is cup size, not the amount of soda put inside it during one sitting.
The ban is limited to restaurants and vendors of ready-to-eat foods, such as delis and food carts. The measure does not include limiting the size of sugary beverages sold in supermarkets or convenience stores, only making it slightly less convenient to get ahold of the bubbly stuff.
It’s estimated that McDonald’s alone will see $140 million in yearly revenue lost.
Nobody’s going to start fundraising to help Mickey D’s out, but they’re just one of thousands of affected businesses expected to lose a significant amount of revenue on this venture.
At the risk of sounding too “NRA,” we aren’t living in East Germany or North Korea. Our economy is capitalistic, and as soul-devouring as it is, we must reap what we sow. Soda companies didn’t make these people obese—the people’s poor decisions did.
What we need to do, rather than taking away businesses’ and citizens’ rights to choose what they sell or purchase, is better educate them on why soda might be banned in the first place.
Advertising dollars are a lot more ample than education funding; every day we’re shown skinny models drinking soda on jet skis or going to soccer practice. Never do we see the reality of an obese woman riding around in a Rascal scooter with a Big Gulp fastened to her cup holder.
If better health education proves unfruitful, implementing an excise tax will be the final logical step, unless the city decides to go all out and ban soda completely.
An excise tax, like what’s added to tobacco products and alcohol, will make soda more expensive and therefore less accessible to those with both limited incomes and larger waistlines.
Oregon has the lowest childhood obesity rate in the country. While we may not be the all-around most-skinny folks, we’re far from needing the government to control what we can eat or drink.
Government should have as minimal an impact as possible on the people it serves. In a society based on free enterprise, businesses that aren’t slinging coke or underaged girls shouldn’t be told what they’re allowed to sell.
For far too long we’ve lived well on borrowed esteem. It’s time for America to own up to its mistakes and work to better educate its people on the consequences of their
actions.