Sugary Drink Ban

biggie

biggie

champ
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Hello all. As those of you who are in the New York area may have found out, a ban on sugary drinks above 16 oz. has been approved in New York City. I had voiced my personal disapproval of the law on my facebook, and a debate closely followed. It got me thinking: what is Smogon's take on the government monitoring and regulating what is "for the good of its own people." Do you think it is the government's job to look out for and protect people against themselves or should we as a people place the responsibility on ourselves?
 
Ideally, people should do this sort of monitoring for themselves. However, given that these drinks are addictive and incredibly harmful, and also the we have shown that we're horrible at monitoring ourselves when it comes to stuff like this (obesity rates rising, for instance), I think it makes sense.
 
people should be able to make their own decisions about things they buy. sugary drinks aren't exactly laced with nicotine or something; you could literally quit whenever you want. if people want to be fat fucks let them be fat fucks.
 
It is most definitely not the government's job to interfere with something so minute as a ban of coca cola and gatorade.

Why should they stop there? Why not ban fast food places? Ban alcohol? Forbid people from driving? These all would "save lives" and "protect the people from themselves," yet they take away from the people's freedoms.


Honestly, the root of the issue is that people are making unhealthy choices themselves. More effort should be put into trying to get people to make better choices, not removing some of the bad choices and hoping that changes things.
 
The reason they are banning it is because of all the health problems that arise from these drinks. They are causing a huge impact in hospitals, who are wasting funds for a problem which can be avoided by making a direct change, rather than fixing the mistakes after they happen.

Anyway, I don't drink soda, so this doesn't affect me anyway :]
 
This comes down to money, as per. You know people who crave these drinks will buy excess quantites of these products to fullfill their needs, and so they must now buy extra amounts to of it to satisfy their own desires.

Another example of crappy ruling and how it indirectly affects the population and profits the "high and mighty's" pockets in a disguised, criminalized fashion.
 
On one hand I support the ban, on the other hand I'm against it. I'd support it because, well, soft drinks aren't exactly healthy, and limiting the size of servings may help in increasing the public's general health.

On the other hand, it is none of the government's business what you drink. Besides, what does decreasing servings do? You can still buy two 16 oz servings. For this to have any effect, soft drinks should be banned entirely.

One last thing, though; how often do you want to have a 16 oz soft drink? I'm having enough difficulty getting through 9 oz already.
 
For those unfamiliar with ounces, 16 oz is about 473ml meaning the standard 500ml coke bottles that are commonplace over here would be outlawed.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one but I'm leaning towards approving - sugary drinks are massively unhealthy and are doubtlessly a big factor in the obesity crisis in NYC and, tragically, we've all become desensitised to quite how awful they are by years of clever advertising featuring Santa Claus and professional athletes. if this laws only legacy is reminding us all that coke is poison and your consumption and your children's consumption of it should be heavily regulated then I think the history books will be kind to it. Contrary to lucariojr's post, it is NOT easy to remove fizzy drinks from your diet - despite being involved in generally fit circles of people I've only ever known two people to remove them from their diet entirely and one of them was me. The other was a good friend of mine who went through a horrible few weeks of lethargy and stomach cramps but now insists it's one of the best decisions he's ever made.

A part of me doesn't like it based on the whole 'nanny state' thing and the fact that there are far bigger culprits out there - take a look at the work Australia is doing to eradicate smoking and then reflect on how little this law is likely to achieve by comparison.
 
Does that mean in New York cinemas they'll only be allowed to sell (ridiculously overpriced) really small amounts of pop?
 
Killah said:
Why should they stop there? Why not ban fast food places? Ban alcohol? Forbid people from driving? These all would "save lives" and "protect the people from themselves," yet they take away from the people's freedoms.
Click to expand...
Emphasis mine. For the first one, Prohibition and the failure thereof says hi. For the second, irate voters willing to vote out anyone who takes the latter to the extreme you seem to indicate say hi.

For the sugary drinks, I think it could use to be upped in maximum quantity a bit, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
 
Just another reason why New York sucks. This is absurd though and I would find every loophole possible to avoid the ban. Or everyone could just get a refill but I'd rather have more fun with civil disobedience.

To be on topic: Each person should be the judge of what they should consume and the government regulating what you can eat and drink sounds like totalitarian shit
 
This really is just complete crap. I mean it's the person's responsability if they want to have such a large drink, but New York should never do something as far as this. It's like a babysitting law, and this change is not going to improve any obesity factors in the state. I guess you could say that they are very unhealthy choices, whcih they are, but really drinks aren't the worst thing on the menu.
 
article-2152535-1362E6FC000005DC-299_634x371.jpg


In my opinion, this is stupid. Why does the government care if we're fat or not?
 
Gengan said:
In my opinion, this is stupid. Why does the government care if we're fat or not?
Click to expand...

they can't tax dead people

Aura Guardian said:
Emphasis mine. For the first one, Prohibition and the failure thereof says hi. For the second, irate voters willing to vote out anyone who takes the latter to the extreme you seem to indicate say hi.
Click to expand...

The point is, they're taking away our freedoms and our right to choose for some vague reason that it'll help prevent people from getting fat. Is it worth getting upset because you want a 24 ounce but you have to settle for a 16 ounce? Not really. The point is, when the government takes away some of your freedoms, they'll just try to take away more. There's a line that needs to be drawn somewhere, and if we don't try to protect that line then they're just going to march on past it down to the next line. Up next would be banning the drinks altogether, which might progress to limiting the access to some unhealthy food, which might progress into banning the unhealthy food - where does it end?


I'm not upset about the ban of sugary drinks, I'm upset about the ban itself. This could set precedent for the government to ban whatever they want, on the grounds of "it's unhealthy!" or "it's for your own good."


Lee said:
A part of me doesn't like it based on the whole 'nanny state' thing and the fact that there are far bigger culprits out there - take a look at the work Australia is doing to eradicate smoking and then reflect on how little this law is likely to achieve by comparison.
Click to expand...

The article actually hinted that they were trying to reduce public smoking in NYC. There is a difference, too, as smoking affects the people around you as much as it affects yourself.
 
Gengan said:
In my opinion, this is stupid. Why does the government care if we're fat or not?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm no expert on the American healthcare system, but I'm pretty sure that a wave of diabetes will have a massive influence on somebody's spending.

The baby-boomers who have been "brought up" in the age of the hamburger, living with uqibitous junk food ever since the years after WWII, are now retiring. If a large part of them are overweight or diabetic, well, helping them pay for healthcare expenses (is that Medicare or Medicaid that covers that?) suddenly gets a lot more expensive.

Then there are all the hospital beds (and worse, MRI machines and similar equipment) that have to be replaced due to the average patient being a lot bigger than before. This also requires specialized types of ambulance equipment such as stretchers and harnesses to lift injuried people into the ambulance. A skilled ambulance or firefighter crew can easily handle people weighing about 80 kilograms, but when they go beyond 200? Then you've got quite a logistics problem. One might even extend the needs for "big boy"-equipment to stuff like cinema chairs, seats on public transport, airport benches, waiting room chairs or even roller coasters (check the seats at the back of the train the next time you ride a big coaster). This obviously costs a bit of money in the long run.

It might be harsh to say "fat = lazy", but even elevator lines may be affected as fewer and fewer people walk the stairs even if they only go up one (or two, or three) floors. Time is lost, and all that. I'm not sure how physical health affects things such as recovery after surgeries or other injuries, but if it does, and in a negative way, it means that the workforce loses more man-hours per injury. On a large scale, it might cost the employer quite a bit of money if his employees are away from work for three weeks following an incident instead of two.

And so on.
 
Personally I'm against the regulations. It really isn't the place of the government to tell you what's ok for you to eat. People should be able to make their own decisions in regard to their health. Besides, if someone doesn't care about their health, then making them buy another thing of soda to satisfy their craving won't make them care about their health. The government trying to impose stuff like this on people will only result in more things later on. It'll just be a slippery slope where they keep using this idea of helping people make the right decisions when they're really just stripping people of their right to choice.
 
This law is silly, yet at the same time, incredibly efficient. The law says it bans the purchase of over 16oz of sugary drinks in restaurants, theaters, cafeterias, basically anywhere where the drinks are bought to drink right there and then (not sure if it applies to supermarkets as well). Let's say, for example, you are the movie theater. A family of 4 going to watch a movie, decides to buy enough soda for everyone. They cannot purchase a large soda (over 16oz), so instead must buy every member individual sodas. Profit made from a simple law. Now another example, a restaurant. you can no longer buy enough soda to last you through the whole meal, you have to buy smaller amounts instead. This also generates profits. I think a large part of the reason this law was approved is because of the money-making possibilities. Sure, its helping people who are obese to control themselves from drinking too much sugary beverages, but at the same time its for creating revenue.

As stated before, this ban is ridiculous, the government doesn't have a right to limit what we drink or eat. If fat people want to be fat, that's their life. I guess it is helpful in the long run, but the help is not appreciated if it is limiting our basic human rights, such as the choice to decide whats best for YOU. That's my 2 cents..
 
Alright, this is just absolutely ridiculous. Ban on sugary drinks? Really? If you're unhealthy because you drank too many sugary drinks, that's your own damn fault. The government shouldn't give two flying fucks about something you brought on yourself, that should be your own responsibility. Wanna be fat? Okay, no problem, no one gives a fuck! This is basically the government babying its citizens when they should be fully capable of making their own decisions, which I really don't understand.
 
It's easy guys. All we have to do is switch to the metric system. Then we can be as fat as we want.

Honestly though, this won't accomplish anything and it was misguided to begin with. I don't know about other "sugary drinks" but I've been told by multiple people that the most unhealthy thing about Coke isn't the sugar (or artificial sugar substitute), it's the acids in it that will melt the enamel off your teeth if you drink enough. (Also I have no idea why New York is the state doing this because they rank 36th among all states in terms of obesity percentage. Meanwhile, obese people are continuing their unhealthy lifestyle in the places where this could make the most difference.)
 
While I'm sure that this law was made with the best intentions of decreasing the obesity problem in NYC... the implementation was done all wrong. More effort should be taken towards the informing and educating of people to make healthy life choices, rather than taking their choice away all together. If someone wants to be a fatass and drink 30 gallons of soda a day, that's their choice... it hurts no one but themselves.
 
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