Soda Bans - Could Your City Be Next?

I've recently been reading about the proposed soda bans in New York City and Cambridge, MA. In a nutshell, both places are considering limiting the serving size of the sugary refreshments to sixteen ounces. This would instantly kill the legendary Big Gulp in it's tracks.

This bold move is being considered in an effort to combat obesity and diabetes, especially among kids. On the surface, I can understand the need to address this issue. However, I have a major problem when the government interferes with personal things like our eating habits. Sure, there's a lot of fat people in this country, but should Uncle Sam really be taking on the role of the Food Police??

Is the consumption of Coke and Pepsi contributing to America's obesity problem? To some degree, I would say that it is. But don't you think that there is a much deeper problem. For instance, when I grew up, every kid in the neighborhood drank plenty of soda. And the only diet soda back then was Tab, which had such a nasty saccharin aftertaste that no kid in his right mind would want to drink it.

Sure, there was an overweight kid here and there (I was husky primarily due to my love of Tastyklairs), but nothing like today. The big difference is that back then, kids actually went outside and moved around. I can remember looking forward to that cold bottle of Coca-Cola after playing baseball all day in the hot summer heat.  The exercise of today's kids is pretty much limited to moving their thumbs around a Playstation joy-pad. Will the government's next move be to limit the amount of time a kid can play his X-box in a single day? Actually, that might be more effective than banning sodas.....

And even if the government starts putting limits on sodas, how will they enforce it? If someone goes into a 7-11 and buys two 16-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew, will be immediately reported to the authorities? This will inevitably leave urban cops deciding whether to deal with a flash mob at the Royal Farms or a "controlled-substance" violation at the 7-11.

And what happens at the grocery store? Will the 12-pack of Pepsi be a thing of the past? And will we say goodbye to the 2-liter bottle which is how most kids are introduced to the metric system?? And what will the movie theaters do? After all, the bulk of their profits come from serving five-gallon tubs of Coke and popcorn. Can they possibly survive if they're forced to serve 12-ounce cans of cola?

Personally, I don't drink a whole lot of soda, so it won't really affect me that much. But I also don't like the idea of the government getting involved in our personal lives any more than it already is......

kw