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The mayor of New York City continues to wage his own war on obesity. New York plans to enact a ban on the sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces. It is difficult to believe there was actually a time when Coca-Cola sold six-ounce bottles of Coke.
Not so coincidentally, that was also a time when the American fanny actually fit in bus seat without overlapping on the person sitting next to you. You want to know when it really was the good old days? It was when someone didn’t feel cheated with a six-ounce drink. Then Pepsi Cola came along.
Pepsi found a sure way to the heart of the American consumer. Along came the 12-ounce bottle. As the Pepsi jingle went, “twice as much for a nickel too, Pepsi Cola is the drink for you.” Thereafter, drinks have grown until they are now super-sized at 32 ounces. Call me silly, but you could cross the Painted Desert on a 32-ounce soda. A camel could make it up and back and still not drink for a week. Show me a person who regularly drinks super-sized beverages and I’ll show you a person with a behind the size of Montana. If you are drinking super-sized drinks, your behind is actually on the way to blanketing Texas. You probably think of KFC as Lean Cuisine. I understand 7-Eleven is coming out with a slushy served in a plastic replica of a hot tub. They are calling it Sodacuzzi.
I sympathize with Mayor Bloomberg. He knows that if things keep going the way they are, New York subways will only be able to hold two overweight people per car. Taxis will need to be the size of a Hummer. Instead of worrying about pickpockets and terrorists in Times Square, the main concern will be heart attacks (and how the hell do we get one of these folks on a stretcher?). The guy on “Man v. Food” will have to eat an entire McDonald’s to impress anyone. But a cautionary note: If government can limit the size of sugary drinks, what would prevent it from banning such drinks all together? Forget about denying Mayor Nutter a chance to make a few tax dollars off their sale. What would prevent a customer from buying two 16-ounce drinks?
For the record, I think Bloomberg’s ban is an example of the Nanny State run amok. But in some ways, the larger, more expensive drinks are being forced on the public when vending machines or even some stores don’t carry smaller-sized beverages. I spent many an afternoon staring at the vending machine in my office building where you could not purchase a drink smaller than 20 ounces. Yes, I know that you do not have to drink the whole bottle at once, but that’s what humans do (and the beverage companies know it). You take one sip, then another, and pretty soon, the 20-ounce bottle is empty and you’re as bloated as a Wall Street CEO’s salary. You take an office full if people drinking large-sized sodas and you may have a spontaneous combustion problem on your hands.
It used to be that you could get a 12-ounce soda in a vending machine in work and then it grew to 16 ounces, and now 20 ounces. I retired from that office more than a year and a half ago, so maybe you have to buy Mountain Dew in the magnum size these days. Some conservatives would argue that the market is just giving the public what it wants. But the vending machine example shows that sometimes business rigs the marketplace. Force a customer to buy a larger container of soda and you increase your profit margin (Maybe I should have taught economics at Chicago University). So where does that leave us?
Using the vending machine example, I see nothing wrong with mandating that vendors also offer smaller-sized beverages. I also see nothing wrong with taxing sugary beverages. My disagreement with Mayor Nutter was that you have to sell the idea as much as on the basis of the need for taxes and not merely hide behind the smoke screen of merely fighting obesity. The concept of sin taxes on products such as tobacco and alcohol is already accepted by most Americans. Educational campaigns such as the one by the first lady have helped.
In New York, it appears as if whatever Mayor Bloomberg personally decides is unhealthy is likely to be banned. I personally think a steady diet of Broadway musicals can cause a high sugar count. One thing is for certain, you better walk the walk if you’re going to promote a healthy lifestyle for Americans.
This may be one issue on which Chris Christie is wise to keep silent.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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