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

Really with all of the issues we have in this country NY government is choosing to focus on soda size??? Now I know what's wrong with the government officials, they'VE LOST TOUCH WITH REALITY !!

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.

i totally agree with Tigerwood above !!

Nanny - Leave me alone.

What do you think about this proposed new law in NY about not being able to sell/buy soda bigger than 16oz? good or bad?

Infringement on personal liberty.

This is just part of the steepening slope when you start asking government to regulate (read: Control) healthcare. Instead of "societal costs" being the increase price you pay for products made by companies who have to pay more sick time to their unhealthy worker, tax payers are now directly responsible for subsidizing the unhealthy population's healthcare.

Could the next step be banning oreo packages containing more than 4 cookies? Or maybe we should just skip to the end and send all of those with BMI over 30 to fitness (read: Fat) camps. After all, society comes first.

Hello Big Brother

it disgusts me (for the most part), that LAWS are being proposed/passed to cut people off of something like soda.
give me a break! the obesity epidemic will NOT be solved by outlawing a certain size of sugary drink.

people will be making bathtub mountain dew in no time! lol

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.

:laugh: No kidding.

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...

I agree with you on this. If the government wants to truly help, then how about not allowing cookies, snack cakes, soft drinks etc on food stamps? If they want assistance then give them healthier options and do not allow they to purchase such stuff on food stamps.

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.

Smoking isn't the same as soda. Smoking affects others around you, you give others 2nd hand smoke along if you're someone like me a nasty migraine, drinking a soda does not. Also drinking a soda isn't necessarily unhealthy.

it disgusts me (for the most part), that LAWS are being proposed/passed to cut people off of something like soda.
give me a break! the obesity epidemic will NOT be solved by outlawing a certain size of sugary drink.

people will be making bathtub mountain dew in no time! lol

Exactly why they need to do something else instead of trying to ban soda. I think they are meaning well but I do not think this is the answer to save the country from being obese.

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.

It has everything to do with "freedom". With this law, we aren't "free" to make our own choices. They are also NOT promoting healthy choices. An example of that would be an ad campaign to educate the public on the dangers of soda.

Yes, there are some reasons why regulating soda consumption may be helpful to society. But, getting rid of the 4th amendment could result in us catching more criminals. That's good because it may result in a reduction in crime. The point is, our freedoms are never taken away for "no reason whatsoever." There's always some seemingly legitimate reason to impinge on our liberty, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.

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.

Read the proposed law.

I don't see it as being an issue of consumer freedom -- I guess it is a restriction in the freedom of the venues selling the product. But there are lots of restrictions on producers and venues so I don't see it as different from any other.

There are plenty of things people can't buy because they are not for sale. I don't see that as an issue of freedom. We're basically talking about a paper cup here. You can't buy a cup shaped like Mickey Mouse (well, maybe you can somewhere) -- is that denying you freedom? I think the state is using it to promote the "healthier" option of drinking less soda by making it less convenient and more expensive to drink larger servings in certain situations. I guess I just don't see what all the personal liberty stuff is about.

People buy unhealthy foods with food stamps because they can't afford to buy healthy foods with food stamps. $100 in food stamps can buy a TON of processed food to keep a family of 4 fed, but won't go very far buying whole foods. It all comes back to the problem of government subsidizing the big crops, making corn and wheat ridiculously cheap, making it much cheaper to produce processed crap food. Imagine how healthy we would be as a nation if instead the government subsidized fruit, vegetables, and pasture raised livestock...

Agreed. But that is a much harder issue to address than cup size. (hee hee)

The idea is to make people have to buy a second drink so they realize they are getting more?
I think they already figured that out when they said "I want to make it a large combo!"

Limiting it, first of all, is going to be a mess for fast food franchise contracts.
Secondly, it's going to reduce the value of your dollar at said establishments.
Third, if I was Mc D's, I'd just give 2 -16oz with a combo to give people even more. It would be my retaliation against B.S. legislation.
Fourth, an 18oz soda doesn't make you fat. Drinking 2-18oz sodas and eating junk everyday while never exercising makes you fat. I know plenty of healthy people that get a combo at lunch with a large drink. You can't focus on one piece of a giant puzzle and say "oh yea, this is the keystone!" It's stupid.

People are responsible for their own decisions. If you want to stop covering fat people under insurance due to excess costs, fine. I'm cool with that. It makes sense, however, to make stupid regulations that overcomplicate our day to day lives because some idiot wants to go communist and regulate how many times we have a bowel movement because he knows better than us - is stupid. If health insurance costs get higher for overweight people, maybe it will motivate them to lose weight. If they don't care, so be it. Either way, that is up to the individual. This whole thing is about stripping it away from the individual. Dumb!