no more than 16oz soda nanny state or good thing?

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  • motherbetty
    motherbetty Posts: 170 Member
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    I'm conflicted on this one. My initial thought is the state shouldn't be making those decisions for people. However, the state does pay billions for health care in Medicaid, and that money comes from us taxpayers. I have all I can do to pay for my own health care, let alone for people who make stupid diet decisions. Mostly, though, I think the state has bigger things to be concerned with.

    This is true. And if people want free health care, they will get more government intervention.
  • stellaskies
    stellaskies Posts: 161 Member
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    I don't think we need anymore babysitting by our officials. What a waste of time and money.

    People need to make thechoice for themselves to eat/drink healthy.
  • LordBezoar
    LordBezoar Posts: 625 Member
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    People are really blowing this out of proportion. The proposed law would prevent cup sizes for soda sold at sporting events and restaurants to be 16oz, but it does not say anything about bottles, nor does it kill the free refills that most restaurants offer. It also does has no effect on convenience stores, so your 64oz Double gulps and the (amazingly horrible) 128oz monstrosities are perfectly safe. At the end of the day, this law would do almost nothing to the lives of regular people, I see it as more of a show by Bloomberg so that he can officially state that he cares about people's health.
  • FaugHorn
    FaugHorn Posts: 1,060 Member
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    People are really blowing this out of proportion. The proposed law would prevent cup sizes for soda sold at sporting events and restaurants to be 16oz, but it does not say anything about bottles, nor does it kill the free refills that most restaurants offer. It also does has no effect on convenience stores, so your 64oz Double gulps and the (amazingly horrible) 128oz monstrosities are perfectly safe. At the end of the day, this law would do almost nothing to the lives of regular people, I see it as more of a show by Bloomberg so that he can officially state that he cares about people's health.

    Oh silly, people don't READ the articles before having an opinion on them! :wink:
  • crzyone
    crzyone Posts: 872 Member
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    The government is tryiing to control our lives. They are slowly taking away our American freedoms that many fought so hard to provide in this country.

    A school (forget which state) by law has to turn off/unplug/etc all soda machines before the lunch period begins so that kids don't drink sodas during lunch. They got caught not doing this and were fined 15,000 dollars. The said they will have to cut out some of their fine art programs in order to pay this.

    The silly thing about this law is that the machines are on all day until right before the lunch period. All a kid has to do is buy his soda early and take it to lunch. The law wasn't cutting down on drinks, just on WHEN they could be sold. If a kid wants a drink, they will buy it early, stick it in their bag and have it.
  • AllTehBeers
    AllTehBeers Posts: 5,030 Member
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    It's a silly regulation. Complete waste of legislation and time, that could actually be going to do something productive. Why not work on making healthier foods cheaper and easier to obtain, rather than telling someone they have to buy 2 16 ounce sodas instead of 1 32 ounce soda? It does nothing to change the problem. It's not even a bandaid for the problem.

    This! I would love to have some kind of programs that reward healthy eating instead of more rules/laws/regulations/taxes on unhealthy things. It would be great if I could get some help buying fresh fruits, veggies and meats.
  • wild_wild_life
    wild_wild_life Posts: 1,334 Member
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    I'm surprised only a couple people have supported it.

    It has nothing to do with "freedom". It has to do with the state promoting healthy choices over unhealthy ones. So have a beef with that if you want to.

    People consume items in units. Larger drinks are more cost effective because it's usually only a few cents more for the next larger size. If you buy the larger size, you drink more, and if what you're drinking is bad for you, your health is more heavily impacted. As others have pointed out, an individual's health is important to society in general for financial reasons. People are going to be just as happy with a smaller size, they will consume the unit they have purchased and be done.

    I think it is a good thing.
  • shinisize
    shinisize Posts: 105 Member
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    Ugh! Sugar is ADDED to 80+% of the products in our stores. Before going after soda, which everyone knows is unhealthy and loaded with sugar, why doesn't the government start cracking down on food labeling regulation for sugar containing products? Why don't they stop letting companies proport any kind of "healthy" claims when they're just sugar delivery systems? Limiting consumers is just going to piss them off. Educating and preventing false education will help them make informed and healthy choices. This is like the bull**** commercials about how "sugar is sugar and therefore fructose isn't bad for you". That's a blatant lie and it's on primetime television.
  • rbear713
    rbear713 Posts: 220 Member
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    [/quote]

    It's communist and I don't even drink soda.
    [/quote]

    Me too - If people want to suck down the crap, let them - Isn't that what this country is all about? Drinking four gallons of soda a day doesn't hurt anyone but the person drinking it! Therefore, who F-ing cares?

    So tired of people worrying about my health and my feelings for me - I'm a big boy now, and I'm perfectly capable of killing or not killing myself all by myself, thank you very much!

    By the way, anyone notice Bloomberg celebrated NATIONAL DONUT DAY two days after dropping the small soda restriction deal? Lord help us all, these are the people we call our "leaders"!!
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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  • vfnmoody
    vfnmoody Posts: 271 Member
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    it's about time ...If you don't control yourself than some one will have to control of you .
    Do you really think people will bother to buy the second bottle? I do not.
    If the companies thought that you would buy the second drink they would be all over this law. They usually charge a lot less per ounce of product in the large size than they do in the small. Their profits would increase.
  • dmpizza
    dmpizza Posts: 3,321 Member
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    The proposed ban is nonsense.

    Of all the things I used to do as a teen in NYC parks, I can't believe that the Big Gulps we drank would be the thing to get us harassed.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    Bloomberg needs to take a long walk off the Brooklyn Bridge.
  • Trelander
    Trelander Posts: 2 Member
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    Something to keep in mind: Your personal insurance costs increases based on the issues at hand in the pool of people. Obesity is not a personal issue anymore because it hurts everyone else.

    Now in this exact issue - is this best idea? No probably not. The government shouldn't be worried about this and should find other ways to handle the issue. Obesity is a extremely complex issue and isn't going to be solved by soda size changes.
  • Sidesteal
    Sidesteal Posts: 5,510 Member
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    I think it's absolutely moronic.
  • kducky22
    kducky22 Posts: 276 Member
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    Look at it like the regulations on smoking that came in years ago - new packaging requirements, new rules for selling to underage people, etc.

    Since unhealthy choices affect the whole society in terms of productivity, health care costs, infrstructure costs(more hospitals, bigger seating etc) I think that these regulations come in from more the financial side than the "take away my freedom side".

    Your personal choice to be unhealthy has huge cost to society in many ways. Government is just trying to mitigate some of the impacts by making it harder for people to be unhealthy - to save money and prevent the country from eating itself into a stupor.

    Unhealthy people = unhealthy country.

    I agree with this for the most part, but I think more regulation is not the answer. If the government is really concerned about health care costs (which they obviously are, as well as myself, for paying large premiums to my insurance company to pay for healthcare for those without insurance), instead of telling us what we can and cannot do, the government should be encouraging healthy foods; making organic cheaper and easier.

    For example, going to Jack in the Box, you can get two junior bacon cheeseburgers and a medium drink for just over $3. That less than if I tried to buy two organic mangos at the store... this is what’s wrong. The fact that we can buy the burgers isn't the problem, it’s the fact that with the healthier options, you get less food for more money...
  • AllTehBeers
    AllTehBeers Posts: 5,030 Member
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    People are really blowing this out of proportion. The proposed law would prevent cup sizes for soda sold at sporting events and restaurants to be 16oz, but it does not say anything about bottles, nor does it kill the free refills that most restaurants offer. It also does has no effect on convenience stores, so your 64oz Double gulps and the (amazingly horrible) 128oz monstrosities are perfectly safe. At the end of the day, this law would do almost nothing to the lives of regular people, I see it as more of a show by Bloomberg so that he can officially state that he cares about people's health.

    Oh silly, people don't READ the articles before having an opinion on them! :wink:

    Haha. Imagine that.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    I'm surprised only a couple people have supported it.

    It has nothing to do with "freedom". It has to do with the state promoting healthy choices over unhealthy ones. So have a beef with that if you want to.

    People consume items in units. Larger drinks are more cost effective because it's usually only a few cents more for the next larger size. If you buy the larger size, you drink more, and if what you're drinking is bad for you, your health is more heavily impacted. As others have pointed out, an individual's health is important to society in general for financial reasons. People are going to be just as happy with a smaller size, they will consume the unit they have purchased and be done.

    I think it is a good thing.
    Bottled water is more expensive than bottled soda. If the goal is to make us healthier, shouldn't they look into making healthier choices less expensive, rather than just limiting portion size for unhealthy options? It doesn't limit portions, just the size of the portions. All it limits is the cup size. I could buy a 16 oz soda, drink it, refill it, and still drink 32 oz of soda, rather than just buying a 32 oz soda to begin with. It's a complete waste of time.

    Here's an interesting statistic. Soft drink profit margins are about 90%. Fresh produce profit margins are around 10%. To me, THAT'S the problem that government should be working to fix.
  • fayelein
    fayelein Posts: 51 Member
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    It's communist and I don't even drink soda.

    hahaha this is hilarious.

    I love it when Americans misuse the word "communist". Not saying I agree with that sort of regulation but it's certainly not communist :p
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    Look at it like the regulations on smoking that came in years ago - new packaging requirements, new rules for selling to underage people, etc.

    Since unhealthy choices affect the whole society in terms of productivity, health care costs, infrstructure costs(more hospitals, bigger seating etc) I think that these regulations come in from more the financial side than the "take away my freedom side".

    Your personal choice to be unhealthy has huge cost to society in many ways. Government is just trying to mitigate some of the impacts by making it harder for people to be unhealthy - to save money and prevent the country from eating itself into a stupor.

    Unhealthy people = unhealthy country.

    And now no one under age 18 ever smokes! Look how well it works!

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