Soda Ban May Hit the Big Apple

An anonymous reader writes "NYC residents may soon be unable to buy big gulps. In an effort to curb obesity, New York City's Mayor Bloomberg is seeking a ban on oversized sodas in restaurants, movie theaters and stadiums officials said on Wednesday. 'Obesity is a nationwide problem, and all over the U.S., public health officials are wringing their hands saying, "Oh, this is terrible,"' Mayor Bloomberg said. 'New York City is not about wringing your hands; it's about doing something. I think that's what the public wants the mayor to do.'"

Comments

Get a refill..

[Drafell]

Seems like a pretty redundant ban to me. Most places offer free refills on soda...

Re:Get a refill..

[tronbradia]

It's a nudge. The law will induce people to drink less soda even though people are allowed to drink as much soda as they want. A variety of studies have shown that people's eating behavior are highly impacted by serving size.

Re:Get a refill..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In the imaginary humans-are-rational-animals land, I'd agree with you.

Empirically, I'd strongly suspect that only relatively strong tugs of either appetite or repletion drive most people to either get a refill or discard a partially full cup. You just sort of suck on the straw until the fluid stops coming out, without thinking about it much, across a surprisingly large set of cup sizes.

The consumer psychology research people seem to consistently be able to pull hilarious stunts in changing the amounts people eat just by changing their cutlery, or using different sized plates, or changing whether or not the waiters clear away used dishes in an 'all-you-can-eat' scenario...

Re:Get a refill..

[jdgeorge]

You don't get it. This is a proposal that curbs the ability of Machiavellian vendors to profit because of people's misunderstanding of basic economics. It's a regulation of the vendors, not the buyers.

Here's how it works:
Most people don't really want the oversized cup. The theaters, stadiums, etc sell it because people will pay $1 more for a larger amount that has an incremental cost for the vendor that is significantly less than selling another cup.

In other words, the vendors sell it for no other reason that it's insanely profitable to get people to pay more for something they don't need at all (but feel as if they should want because it seems like a good price for the excess amount). People see that the second 16 ounces cost significantly less than the first 16 ounces, so they feel compelled to buy it in order to get "a good deal". However, most buyers don't consider that the value to them of the second 16 ounces is close to $0, but they're paying close to $1 for it.

Re:Get a refill..

[0123456]

As long as the government is intervening in their every day life by providing a safety net for their irresponsible decisions, how is this a bad thing?

Who is the government to tell people that they're being irresponsible? And, if they are but aren't harming anyone else, so what?

Do you really, seriously, truthfully believe that the Nanny State banning big sodas won't prevent soda addicts from... drum roll please... buying two of them?

All this really does is prove that politicians are stupider than people who drink ten liters of soda in a day.

Re:Get a refill..

[operagost]

You can't read too far into this study. Many people don't want to waste food because they either grew up in a poor household or were taught not to waste by their parents (the "starving kids in Africa hyperbole"). If given a big bag of popcorn, they might try to finish it even if they don't like it because they feel a need to not waste food. Not everyone is just a glutton.

Re:Get a refill..

[savi]

Who is the government?

We the people. We the people, as a community, have identified a behavior in the community that is unhealthy and expensive due to healthcare costs. Since, in this case, the community is not a small community in which members can exert direct pressure on each other through personal relationships, the community is exerting pressure in another way. If you think this is new or somehow restricted to governments, then you're not paying attention to all of human history. If you want to be free from the pressures of your community and have no responsibility to other people, you're free to live in the wilderness. This has nothing to do with government. It's fine to disagree with this, but framing it as a "nanny state" issue is misleading. Ever since humans evolved culture (and probably before that), we've developed ways to curb the detrimental behaviors of our fellow community members. People are idiots and they're addicted to sugar. It places a cost on the rest of us. I see no reason why your right to be a lardass trumps the community's need to keep healthcare costs down.

People CAN buy two drinks, but I think quite a few people won't. Humans eat/drink what is set before them without noticing. They won't be trained to desire so much soda if they aren't handed so much to begin with.

Yet another reason....

[cayenne8]

...for people to leave NY.

I've been seeing reports that over the past few years, there's been an exodus of quite a number of people leaving NY for other states to get away from the high taxation there....many going to states with no state income taxes, or estate taxes (like FL).

Now the state is trying to tell you wtf you can drink or eat? Sheesh.

Are people so fucking stupid now...they cannot fathom that behavior such as drinking a ton of sugared beverage a day....to wash down nothing but greasy, fat laden burgers...will make them fat? Even if it is the case....why is it the govts responsibility to protect stupid people from their own stupid actions?

Seems like we're trying to circumvent natural selection.....let these people take themselves out of the gene pool....and maybe we'll have fewer stupid people in a couple of generations?

I've honestly started to wonder, with all the problems we're seeing in modern kids, autism on the rise...so many of them with food allergies (I never heard of anyone almost dying from PB&J sandwiches at school when I grew up, and we ALL ate them)...etc.

Maybe we ARE doing too much to protect weak genes in the pool....that might have weeded themselves out in the past....and allowing them to continue to proliferate?

Re:Yet another reason....

[IceNinjaNine]

Maybe we ARE doing too much to protect weak genes in the pool....that might have weeded themselves out in the past....and allowing them to continue to proliferate?

Watch the movie Idiocracy. It's coming, and I don't know if there's anything we can do about it. I'll paraphrase something that I once read (can't come up with a cite, sorry): "I say we take the safety labels off of everything and let nature work itself out."

Re:How is this legal?

[Dancindan84]

Yes, that's why here in Canada where we have had government funded healthcare since the 60s I have to go get my lunch at Kentucky Steamed Rice & Vegetables...

No wait. This is the country where we have our fries covered in cheese and gravy.

There they go again! Bastards.

[Cajun Hell]

TL;DNR but I can tell you, this would never happen in an Android market.

Re:And what exactly did we expect?

[artor3]

So let's hear your solutions...

-I had unprotected sex, I should go get a clothes hanger stuck in me in some back alley, and die of an infection if it doesn't work
-I had kids I can't support, they should be forced to live a life of squalor and misery for my mistake
-I'm an addict, I should continue to spiral downwards until I die in the streets
-I made shitty choices and now I'm poor, I should be forced to turn to crime to avoid starvation
-I have a $25,000/year job but can't afford my mortgage, the government should watch the entire economy go down in flames rather than help me out
-I'm a bank and I've made a catastrophic series of worthless investment, the government should stand aside while others suffer horribly for my actions. Meanwhile I'll retire in luxury, since I've already collected millions in bonuses.

The government's job is to promote the common good. That sometimes means helping people who've made mistakes. You seem to be more interested in making people suffer for them. I wonder if your tune would change if you or someone you cared about ever slipped up. But no, that would never happen. You don't make mistakes. You're a god.

Want to do something?

[brian0918]

Want to curb consumption of high fructose corn syrup? You can start by removing all government subsidy of the corn industry.

Re:Nanny State

[MightyYar]

Wow, shocking, a gentrifying northeastern city where few use cars to get to work and declining polluting industry is slightly ahead of the median of the country in life expectancy...

A question to you is, if you could live to be 100 as opposed to 80, but someone got to tell you what you could and could not do, would that be worth it?

What a Vapid Post

[eldavojohn]

I think your cause and effect logic is deeply flawed.

I had unprotected sex, the govt should pay for my abortion

The government does not propose to pay for abortion because people should be able to have sex. The logic arises from studies conducted that suggest that legalized and subsidized abortion results in fewer unwanted children and therefore less crime. While you might debate that, the reasoning is that it's cheaper for society to pay for an abortion than it is to have a criminal interred on and off for life. Are you against taxpayer dollars being used to teach contraception in schools? What about tax dollars to hand out free condoms to those most at risk? Subsidizing abortions is a step further in that direction. It is not designed to give people the ability to have sex without protection.

I had kids I can't support, the gov't should pay to help me care for them

Are you aware of what a "dependent" is on a tax form? Again, it's cheaper for society to issue welfare and food stamps than to deal with the societal harms that come from malnourished children and the state assuming control over a child. What exactly is your ideal scenario in this case? That we have street urchins that occasionally die in our streets? That we have social services taking care of tens of thousands more children?

I'm an addict, the gov't should pay for my treatment

Again, you seem to imply that the government is being lobbied by the addicts. Instead it is the cost/benefit of dealing with addicts that have already developed dependencies on illegal addictive substances. You implement awareness programs with taxpayer dollars and the final unfortunate step is helping these people control their addictions so they're not mugging or killing people for money. A lot of these people have to support their habits with crime. Our jails are already overcrowded so the alternate step is to try to treat them and keep them from engaging in such behavior. Again, what is your ideal scenario? That you shake your finger at an addict and say "Welcome to the school of hard knocks, now go beat someone for money for your habit so you can spend the rest of your life in jail where I can pay more money for you to live."

I made shitty life choices and now I'm poor, the gov't should pay for me to have a decent life

Right, because everyone who is poor is poor because of shitty life choices and they should starve for those choices. We have the ability to provide them basic food and subsidize their housing but your ideal scenario is what exactly? You do know that they do not live like kinds and queens?

Welcome to your self-designed Nanny State.

If the alternative is crime ridden neighborhoods, I'll take a little bit of a nanny state. You people that demand one extreme over the other are really annoying and short sighted. Did you know that buildings have to make fire code in order to be constructed? God, what a nanny state we've found ourselves in! Why aren't we working to remove any sort of building and safety codes? PROTIP: A happy medium exists somewhere in between the extremes. When society's total cost is drastically lower to implement a nanny state law, we start to weigh the pros and cons.

Re:Educate first.

[Eponymous Coward]

Education doesn't work and the recommended daily intake numbers have more to do with politics than nutrition.

Every single person ordering 20+ ounces of soda knows that water would be a better choice.

This is a regulation of vendors, not consumers. I predict that within 20 years, the executives of major food companies will start facing scrutiny and lawsuits in the same way that tobacco executives did a few years ago. If current trends continue, the damage that companies like Coca Cola and McDonald's are doing will dwarf anything that the tobacco companies did.

Re:And what exactly did we expect?

[Dripdry]

While what you mention is somewhat true, what you fail to mention is the opposite: The eras before we created a social net were horrifying by today's standards. One bad crop season, or loss of a job, or getting on the wrong person's bad side could easily leave you a starving wretch (can still happen, but less common).

Also, it's not government that's running a lot of this, it's corporations. I'm sure the corn lobby is loosening up as their dollars are less effective than the military and IP racket these days, and Biggie B (as his friends call him) in teh Big Apple has to do something to make him look good after all this police nonsense and Occupy.

Look, I don't disagree with you that government, in some ways, is getting its mitts on some things it shouldn't. However, maybe looking at what risks government should cover and what they shouldn't ought to merit consideration, not just making a statement implying that you're somehow superior because you happened to be in the right circumstances to make "good" life choices (I assume, though I may be wrong). Check out stuff on the sociology of deviance, I suspect you'll find the subject infuriating to what sounds like your fairly uncompassionate world view (this does not include too big to fail. we can all agree that was pure crime)

BTW..... why don't we worry about the incredible amount of money spent blowing up brown people and spying on and jailing our own citizens before we start moralizing and saying we shouldn't help our Fellow Man because of "blah-di-blah" and then quoting a stupid fucking TV show that too many people worship anyway.

Re:And what exactly did we expect?

[nine-times]

It has been going on at all levels of American life since at least the Great Society programs, and we as voters have cheerfully voted consistently for the government to 'cushion' more and more of life's hard knocks from our sensitive existences.

Yeah, I mean, look at all these people who want to be cushioned by society. Like NYC banning soda. Or NYC having a health department that makes sure there are no rat feces in your food. I mean, let that be between me and the restaurant. If there's a restaurant that has rat feces in it, I just won't go there anymore. You don't need a health department.

And then they have laws that are prevent landlords from kicking deadbeats out of their apartments. Like, who cares that you've lived in your apartment for 20 years, the price of rent has gone up old lady! You can find another place to live. Just live within your means!

Oh, and let's not forget about the fire department. I mean, if you don't want to install sprinklers and other fire protection in your apartment building, that's your own fault, and you're the one who's going to burn alive. If you want to live in an apartment with sub-standard fire protection, that's your choice. We should all do our own research before you buy into these things.

Don't even get me started on the police. They're always butting into everyone's business. I know, you're going to say, "But what if I get robbed?!" That's why guns need to be legal. We should all be settling these matters ourselves. And traffic lights? Why does the government feel the need to get involved in how I drive my car?

This is all just the nanny state running amok. Look, I test all of my kids toys to make sure the manufacturer isn't using lead-based paint. I do all my own scientific research on the medical procedures I undergo, so I don't need Mr. Government telling me which treatments are effective. I built a bunker under my house and I have a small arsenal in there-- I don't need your nanny-state army to protect me. We should all just go our own way.