Should we support beverage ban?

Should we support beverage ban?

By KUI LI

New York City's proposed ban on the sale of sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces in restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues and street carts has been passed, Thursday, September 13, 2012. The public is discussing very fiercely on this proposal. This article is an attempt to evaluate the policy’s effectiveness and rationality.

Should we support Bloomberg's policy? To find the answer to this question, we have to answer some other questions first. Since Bloomberg's purpose of this law is to solve the obesity problem, we have to know: how much of the obesity problems of New Yorkers is caused by drinking too much sugary beverage? There are lots of other factor that might still play a crucial role in making people heavy such as excessive consumption of fast food, lack of exercise, too much hormones in livestock food, genetic factors and etc.

As Bloomberg's proposal is just to restrict the size of the container, we need to think that is this really effective? Does this really make people drink less soda? Can I buy two 8-ounce bottles instead of a 16-ounce one? Does the currently used huge coke container really make people drink some extra liters they otherwise might not drink? So it is quite possible that the mere limitation on the size of container will not effectively limit the consumption of soda without an accompanying restriction of the number of bottles that people can buy.

And also, we have to answer that is it the government’s job to decide what size of beverage should or should not people drink? Do people have the right to get fat? If the assumption that being overweight does cause health problem and shrink longevity is correct, the question then becomes do people have the right to destroy their health? In this way, this issue is quite similar to questions such as do people have the right to smoke? And hence further, do people have the right to suicide?

We have to answer all these questions to get a relatively objective judgement on Bloomberg’s policy. The following paragraphs are trying to analyze and find the answers to the listed questions.

How much weight should we give to sugary beverage in causing obesity? Is it one of, if not the only, culprits? A one-word answer is yes. According to a 20-year study conducted by experts in Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health on 120,000 men and women, people who increased their sugary drink consumption by one 12-ounce serving per day gained more weight over time—on average, an extra pound every 4 years—than people who did not change their intake¹. Based on this study, we can conclude that sugary drinks are truly playing an important role in obesity’s prevalence. And in some other studies, we can easily see that sugary beverage is causing diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. We don’t actually have to pay too much attention on whether soda is directly causing diseases or indirectly by causing obesity first. If those sugary beverage is at all worsening Americans’ health, then Bloomberg’s measures are at least relevant, or have a beautiful wish, letting alone its effectiveness. A study that followed 40,000 men for two decades found that those who averaged one can of a sugary beverage per day had a 20% higher risk of having a heart attack or dying from a heart attack than men who rarely consumed sugary drinks². Another study shows that people who consume sugary drinks regularly—1 to 2 cans a day or more—have a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people who rarely have such drinks³. To sum up, sugary beverage is a conspicuous trigger for obesity. If the government really does something to cut the sugary beverage consumption, health condition of New Yorkers will definitely be improved.

However, here comes the second question. Does the New York’s proposal really stop people from drinking excessive calories by merely modify the size of container? Let’s assume that before the execution of the law, big container has a capacity of 24 ounces and after the  practice of the proposal, the biggest can contains just 16 ounces. What will people do before and after the law? We can classify big sugary drink consumers into two groups. Type A and type B. The similarity of these two types of persons is that both of them drink 24 ounces of soda before the ban. The differences between them are that type A person can drink the full 24 ounces per meal and feel quite good. Type B person can drink the full 24 ounces per meal but they feel very full if they drink that all. Their perfect capacity ranges between from 16 ounces to 20 ounces. Perfect capacity can be defined like this: when a person drinks a certain amount of beverage, if after drinking s/he feels the most comfortable, then that amount is considered as the perfect capacity. The type B person can drink all of 24 ounces but they feel very full if they drink all 24 ounces. Once they reach their perfect amount and keep drinking more, their stomach will feel over-full and uncomfortable. But they will still drink the rest of the beverage in that 24-ounce glass because they just don’t want to throw it away or because the glass is just in front of their eyes and it’s so convenient for them to put the straw into their mouthes and suck.

Then let’s see what happens after Bloomberg’s proposal comes into effect. Type A person can drink 24 and feel very good. Once the biggest glass is only 16-ounce. They want to refill their bottle and have a potential of drinking 32 ounces. The type B person, however, when provided with a 16-ounce glass, may stop at the first glass of 16 ounces. So in this imaginary example, Bloomberg’s policy might be a good candidate for solving the obesity problem. But it still has a risk of worsening the situation. Since there are already a lot of people who regularly eat and drink a lot in New York City, we can expect a widespread existence of type A person who might drink two glasses after the law’s execution. So we must be very careful about this proposal.

As mentioned earlier in this article, is it the government’s business to interfere people’s lifestyle? Should people have the right to gain weight? Let’s start from a different angle. What if this happens in North Korea instead of the United States? What will be the North Koreans’ reaction on this proposal? I am quite sure. There will be no protest from the people there at all. Who will have such a great reaction when their government just tries to modify their beverage size without actually harming anything? Does the government really take away any rights from the people? If it does, what’s taken away is just the big container. This almost has no effect on people’s life at all. People can still drink the same soda as and even more than before. Why are New Yorkers so sensitive about this? Or why are Americans so sensitive about this? Because this relates to freedom. The basic value of the American society is freedom. Even the taking away of a very tiny piece of freedom can irritate their hormone of self protection. Once the government takes away the big beverage container, the Americans are thinking: what’s the next thing that the king is going to taken away from us?

Let’s see something else now. The gun law. Why in some states can people own a gun? How do those states pass these laws? Personally, I believe that accepting people to own a gun can to some degree worsen the safety in that place. But if the government doesn’t allow the people to own arms, people’s freedom is harmed. What if the government army enter my room at 2:00 a.m. in the morning and want to take me away without any explanation? If I have a gun, I can protect myself. It seems that many laws in the United States is aimed at protecting the people, especially from the government. Probably it’s because American people are getting tired of the life before the Independent War. They are always try to limit the power of the king - the government. Nobody has super power in this country - the Congress, the president or the Supreme Court. If we understand this, it’s not hard to understand the Americans’ reaction on Bloomberg’s proposal.

However, in no universe is freedom free. For instance, the freedom of owning guns has the cost of losing safety; the freedom of speech has the cost of losing national secret; the freedom of drinking whatever size of beverage has the cost of losing longevity. And freedom is always limited freedom rather than absolute freedom. If there is no limitation, one person’s freedom will undoubtedly has the potential of hurting another’s freedom.

Now let’s come back to the beverage ban. Americans are a group of people who love freedom very much. But sometimes their freedom is abused. Once freedom is abused, people have to pay for that. If the Americans have the right to drink however much sugary beverage, their health will be sacrificed. So here comes our question: do people have the right to choose to get fat? My answer is: they can have the freedom to choose if they want, but they have to pay for losing their health.

And the other version of the question is: do people have the right to suicide? If drinking too much sugary beverage is shrink people’s longevity, we can surely equate drinking excessive sugary beverage to behaviors like smoking, which people always referred to as long-term suicide. To answer this question, we can follow these steps of answer different questions. First, what is people’s right? Second, what’s the difference between using one’s right and abusing one’s right? Where is the balance line? Third, who is the owner of our lives? Or who are the owners of our lives? Ourselves or someone else? Or together?

Anyway, to avoid making this article a book on which I may spend 10 years or more, I decide to stop exploring these questions now.

Yet stopping exploring those questions doesn’t mark the end of this article. Here is another factor that I have to mention until I close. That is the possible economic ramifications of Bloomberg’s policy. Unquestionably, if Bloomberg’s aim is to reduce the calories people intake from sugary beverage, then that goal almost equals to reduce the sale of sugary beverage. Assuming that beverage producers don’t try to make more profits on their non-sugary beverage, their profit will be affected. As a government, it has to consider both the health benefits (if any) and the economic downsides (if any). Like that we cannot consume the environment to achieve an economic and employment improvement, we also cannot consume people’s health to achieve an economic and employment goal. So as long as we don’t find a perfect solution that benefits both, the government has to carefully find the balance.

References:

1. Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. N Engl J Med. 2011;
2. de Koning L, Malik VS, Kellogg MD, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption, incident coronary heart disease, and biomarkers of risk in men. Circulation. 2012;
3. Malik VS, Popkin BM, Bray GA, Despres JP, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis. Diabetes Care. 2010.