Mike Bloomberg’s war on Big Sugar

Last Thursday the Commissioner outlined plans to cap serving sizes of sugary drinks at 16 ounces (473 ml), which will be in force next March. The rule would cover sodas, sweetened teas and so-called (feel free to guffaw) “vitamin” waters.

The size limit would apply only in restaurants, cinemas, delis and street side food vendors. Even so, Big Sugar is already wheeling out the heavy artillery.

Sadly for Big Sugar the mayor has both the facts and history on his side.  And most of all he’s rich enough not to be swayed by soft money.

Sodas do contribute to the obesity epidemic because of the way our bodies process such drinks. And we’re gulping down more and more of that stuff. According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, the average size of a quick service restaurant soda is stunning sixtimes larger than a soda in the 1950s. These drinks are empty calories, free of nutrition and fail to create a sensation of fullness, adding over a thousand kilojoules each day.

Americans slowly grew chubbier from 1960 to the early 1980s. But in the 25 years since the mid 1980s, Americans, like pigs on hormone supplementation, have fattened up at twice that rate. The Annual Review of Public Health in 2005 showed that a rapid rise in obesity rates began in the 1980s.

In 2002, Flegal, Carroll, Ogden and Johnson, in the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out that during the late 1980s and early 1990s, obesity prevalence climbed to 23% and reached 31% by 2000. While Grade 3 obesity (where the Body Mass Index is at least 40) grew even more rapidly, rising from 1.3% in the late 1970s to 4.7% in 2000. The depressing evidence is that while Australians are not quite as fat as Americans, we’re catching up real quick, don’t you worry. Numerous studies, including that of Fontaine, Redden, Wang, West and Allison in 2003have linked sugary drink consumption with long-term weight gain as well as an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

In this fight the soda industry will be clutching at straws.

Sadly for them, Bloomberg’s proposal only needs the approval of the New York City Board of Health, a board appointed by the Mayor. It does not require the approval of elected politicians in the state capital, Albany (as would be the case in an Australian Commonwealth or state parliament), where soft money contributions may sway a vote. You see, all but one member of the New York City Board of Health, are appointees of the Mayor and must answer to the Mayor, and not to donors. And the real kicker is that the sole non-appointee, the big cheese himself, the Commissioner, is very, very much on board.

It looks very much like Check Mate for Big Sugar.

It is expected that lobbyists will go to the airwaves, print and online media decrying the “assault on freedom of choice” which they will claim the city’s #1 Nanny wants to impose. Many others, with shallower pockets, of course will argue they too want freedom of choice: the freedom to choose not to pay for health care of others where it is clear that a patient’s dietary behaviour directly related to his/her hospitalisation.

According to Nancy Huehnegarth of the Huffington Post, two years ago the American Beverage Association spend nearly US$13 million in lobbying against a proposed cent-per-ounce New York state soda tax. No expense was spared. Big Sugar hit both the electronic and print mediums as well as dangled the sword of possible bottling plant relocations out of the state, if the tax saw light of day.

The lobbyists won that day. Lawmakers folded like paper napkins. With their nightmare of a countrywide bad food tax, Big Sugar’s fear campaign trumped popular pro health advertisements.