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John Makely / msnbc.com
Judy Laurini, left, and Gem Sumner, right, laugh about their 24-ounce sweet teas that they bought from McDonald's on Sixth Avenue.
NEW YORK -- Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to limit the size of New Yorkers' sugary drinks, but the initiative is not going down very well with people in the city, including visitors interviewed on Thursday.
The ban on the sale of any cup or bottle of a drink larger than 16 fluid ounces – a little bit bigger than the size of a soda can – would include a range of sweetened drinks sold at restaurants and food carts, according to the mayor’s office. The New York Times, which reported on the initiative, said the proposal could go into effect as early as next March.
The mayor noted that 58 percent of adults in the city (and nearly 40 percent of public school students in grades K-8) are overweight or obese. Obesity costs $4 billion a year in health care costs and kills thousands of New Yorkers, his office said.
But that rationale didn’t fly with many out for lunch or a stroll in the city’s midtown district.
“I don’t need the government on my meal plate or in my beverage,” said Travis Humphrey, a 30-year-old who works in tobacco prevention from Norman, Okla.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has touched off a nationwide controversy with his efforts to combat obesity. He joins Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss the proposal.
He said he was “very reluctant” to have such regulations imposed on businesses and their products though he welcomed the effort to work on serious health issues. “This is something that I am not exactly sure if government regulation … is going to be the solution.”
A pair of friends in town drinking sweet teas in what appeared to be 24-ounce size cups also denounced the mayor’s effort.
“I wish the government would get out of it and stay out of our lives and allow us to make the choices,” said Judy Laurini, 68, of Rochester, N.Y., who advocated that he spend money on educating people about the health problem.
“I’m an adult, I can drink it if I need it,” chimed in her friend, Gem Sumner, 68, of Seattle, Wash. “But I would not let my children,” she added, laughing.
A man who didn’t want to identify himself derided the effort and the mayor’s earlier anti-smoking law, calling him, “Dr. Bloomberg,” and saying it felt like a “police state.”
“I think he’s a little bit out of line. I don’t think he’s got the right to sort of dictate what people can and cannot drink,” Carolyn Summers, a 46-year-old New Yorker who works in finance said as she held a large cup of unsweetened tea. “I can see that concern about obesity but I think that people need to be responsible for themselves.”
The mayor’s office said the ban would build on his previous health initiatives, such as banning smoking in public places and having calorie content posted at chain restaurants. It said those had improved life expectancy by nearly three years in the city famous for its pizza slices and hot dogs.
John Makely / msnbc.com
Bonita Troia, 35, a paramedic and her son Carlos Lopez, 17.
“We have an obligation to warn you when things aren't good for your health,” he told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “So here the idea is, if you have to take it in a smaller glass, you’ve got to make a conscious decision to have another cup of it. And, we think a lot of people won't and therefore that will reduce one of, and it’s only one of, the contributors to the obesity epidemic that’s going on in this country.”
Bonita Troia, a 35-year-old paramedic from Kingsville, Texas, said she agreed with the mayor, especially since in her work she sees 500-pound adults and children who weigh 200 or 300 pounds.
“When we grew up in the ‘80s the portions were smaller and people weren’t that big,” she said as she ate lunch with her teenage son. “The portion sizes have been getting bigger so people got bigger.”
“People just don’t discipline themselves,” she added. And, “us as taxpayers are paying for what people are putting on their plates.”
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You have to love the tea party ,gop freedom of choice crowd, limit the surgery drinks to their kids its the apocalypse ,stick a ultra sound up a woman's vagina and you can hear the cricket's
Surgery drinks??? What in the hell are you talking about.?? Can't spell Sugary dumass
This is the way our country is going under our current administration. They talk big about education reform but a simple word such as sugary can't be spelled correctly. Go to California and you will see more limits than this and California is controlled by Democrats!
Is there anything else they would like to regulate and take away??
Can they list them all now so we can give an appropriate blanket reply??
OK ... here's my blanket response:
Instead of banning big drinks, how about banning big government!
Now, that's cutting a different kind of fat. :)
Dictator Bloomberg is a complete horse's a$$. Time for him to step down from what he obviously sees as his fiefdom.
So when is Bloomberg going to realize that he's not God and his edicts will be overturned when he's out of office? This guy is so full of himself his eyes are brown.
The brown is from the donkey crap.
.
Here's what I find extremely ironic. Conservatives are generally dead set against legalization of marijuana even though there is very little evidence that it constitutes a health problem or a significant hazard or cost to others. In fact the main reason that it currently is a cost to all of us is the "war against drugs" which was launched and staunchly supported by conservatives.
However, when it comes to a health epidemic of obesity in the US, they begin to complain about their right to be as fat and as unhealthy as they want by eating whatever they want. If you don't believe that obesity is costing us big time in health care, you should go look at the statistics. Healthy eaters are required to pay for medical care of the majority population of obese people!
One cannot logically hold both positions at the same time, but conservatives do which makes them hypocrites of a high order. What makes conservatives tick that they are capable of this cognitive dissonance?
I believe in personal freedom. A person should be allowed to eat whatever they want and smoke marijuana if they choose. However since bad eating habits are costing me in insurance and medicare payments, I feel that obese people who don't not strive to control their eating habits should darn well pay a surcharge on their health insurance! They should also pay a surcharge on airfares.
Insurance companies already charge a lot more for over weight people and they do pay for they're insurance just like idiots like you do!
Mr. Fat, that is simply not true. Most people are insured through their workplace, rates are flat and do not depend on your health. In addition when you pay for medicare out of your paycheck, no consideration is taken of your health. As for airline tickets, they are also flat regardless of your weight unless you are so fat that you require two seats.
There was a petition asking Obama to legalize pot and it had enough signatures on it that he responded to it. Actually he didn't respond to it as he had some other person respond that had medical knowledge and the person said that it shouldn't be legalized as it is not healthy to smoke and he gave a bunch of other information about it. That was the end of it. There were a bunch of other petitions asking for the same and after that they all got shut down as Obama didn't want to consider it.
Hey Mayor Dumbberg, I'm going to buy 2, 16 ounce drinks and just gorge myself. What you going to do now huh?????
The mayor is losing it. Stores will offer two 16 oz drinks instead of a large one for the same price, also the restaurants will offer free refills for drinks. Does the mayor really believe the fatties will lose weight via his try at reducing their weight? Only when Americans realize that they are the fattest people in the world and thus have more medical problems then others (which is why we fall below other countries in terms of weight related illness like diabetes and heart disease) will they curb the amount of food on their their plates.
The mayor must have been desperate to even propose this law. He must be looking at projections of the future cost of the obesity epidemic on New York. It is very distressing when you walk around in the malls or just about anywhere and see all the fat people. Being fat causes a premature aging of sorts. Arthritis in the knees , in the lower back, certain cancers, Diabetes. Many many problems.
I still remember how skinny the people were in the 70's. It was fashionable to be thin back then. Remember Charlies Angels. The girls on that show were all very thin.
Maybe Hollywood should get into the act by promoting how great it is to be thin.
You can't be serious.
Yeah, but a lot of the skinny people in the 70s were on the "AIDS reducing plan".
Jerryb - AIDs was a condition recognized in the 80's not the 70's.
I was a child in the 50's. Fat people were fairly rare, especially children. There might be one fat kid in your classroom. Today, a large portion of kids are overweight and in the adult population it is getting ridiculous.
It was also very rare in the 70's. I remember one of my high school teachers who was very very fat. I think he weighed over 400 pounds. I remember him because his fifth heart attack finally did him in. People are really playing with fire by being so heavy. When they get Diabetes they have no one to blame but themselves. Diabetes does terrible things to the body.
Maybe the government should ban tv, computers and video games as this is a big reason why kids and adults are obese today!
It should not be the governments responsibility to take care of this problem. I think society will have to just decide one day that they've had enough of this problem. They will make the lifestyle changes necessary to eliminate this problem.
I agree that the government shouldn't control us in this way.
Why do new Yorkers keep voting for this guy?? I thought New Yorkers had a little brains anyway, not much, but a little.
Maybe they don't vote for him, except for a few million dead people, cartoon characters, comic book characters, and Snow White, Snoopy, Grumpy, Dopey, etc...
"Bloomberg" see what you get from a mayor with more money then common sence- NYC can have him, Should be called Little Caesar he has his empire. Government just needs to get the "H" out of peoples lives period. Tired of government telling me what I can to do and what I can't and it's becoimg more of what I can't do! Two places I won't go to for any reason- Calif and NYC don't want to give these idiot governemts any benfit from what little sales tax etc they may get from me. When are people going to grow a back bone and put a stop to this maddness? Roman Empire lasted around 900 years, the good old US of A probably won't last 250 years the way we're going. ( and we're at what 237 ) We are in a sorry shape because people give up their freedoms so the Government can take care of them.
So, now that New Yorkers are about to lose the "right to be fat", will they also lose the "right to bare arms"?
The reason why Americans are fat is because growth hormones and antibiotics, both in which cause GROWTH, are injected in the animals that we (you, not me, I'm a Vegan), consume everyday, several times a day. you are what you eat. Factory farming is doing an ugly disservice to animals and humans and that's not even the half of it. It's a disgrace and if anything should be banned it's factory farming.
The reason why Americans are fat is because they are sedentary.
And because they eat tons of fat and sugar loaded, high calorie foods. They are food addicts in serious need of treatment. I very much doubt that growth hormones and antibiotics have much to do with it. If you think so Heather, would you care to mention the studies that find this specific relationship?
Certainly staying away from fatty meats and sugary products is going to help keep your weight where it should be.
I have never heard anything about the hormones being injected into animals causing obesity. I have heard that it is believed to be causing kids to reach puberty at earlier ages though. The main reasons for obesity is that we live a very sedentary lifestyle and instead of families cooking nutritious meals they hit the restaurants. A few years ago I heard of a foster parent that couldn't get these foster kids to eat home cooked meals as the biological mother only provided them fast food. The foster mother went to a fast food restaurant and asked them for food containers/wraps and she started to put the home cooked meals in the containers and the kids would then eat them as they believed they were being fed fast food from the fast food establishment. This is how we are now days. Back before refrigeration the common way to preserve meat was by using lots of salt which meant people ate a lot of salt but they were not as sedentary as we are. People back then may have been able to live longer if the medical technology of today was available back in those days.
Well it is fun to read the posts and some of you are down near ready to take up arms to ensure the bucket of soda you feel the need to buy..Times are a changing becuase i and many others are trying to not eat crazy amounts of sugar.. its not healthy. Seriously do what you want but realize this: The American diet will kill you.
Tell you what.......I won't tell you what to drink, if you will not tell me what to drink.
Bloomberg is another example of a donkey taking a dump on the public.
Now i remember a Sliders episode where you need a permit and a note from your doctor to eat fat salty greasy crap with a bucket full of sugary goodness.. Thats what Bloomburger oughts ta institute!! bwaa haa haa
I guess if I wanted to commit political suicide, I would ban sugary drinks. Sometimes politicians should just leave the living to their citizens and just worry about getting elected.
Food Nazis at work, again!
This is stupid people will just buy two or more drinks. I don't need anyone to tell me how much I should drink. I do not think this is not the venue for the government. Some people need more fluids than others. I usually order either a sugarless drink because I need the fluids but do not need the calories.
sugar is addicting..........some call it the 'white death'.......
If people cannot look after themselves then others will have to do it for them. It takes a village.
We all end up paying for their diseases in the end whether it's through higher insurance premiums or our taxes.
Sugary sodas equal fat and unhealthy.
CBLinRaleigh -
It takes a village - Hillary is that you? Wow thanks for the post! Where do you find the time?
That aside - We are ALL to blame for this proposal - no matter what party affiliation, life style, gender, status, you name it, We are ALL to blame! We all wanted to believe, in one way or another, that we could openly invite the government into our lives to regulate (ban) the things that we don't like or want other to have - Hate speech, gun control, abortion, raising our kids, raising someone else's kids, how we SURRENDERED our responsibility to control our lives, (add anything here that you want to have taken from someone else but not from you) with the government then deciding we can't handle the responsibility and the results you get are more government in your life! How did that happen? OPEN ARMS WIDE and say Hi to the Monster you created! Now all of a sudden you think this can be stopped? No, not anymore. Not unless you want to take back the responsibilities you gladly gave up but that will involve a lot of pain.
What do they care? Their making their buck...Besides, sounds like Bloomberg at his best..
So what's to stop people from just drinking 8 drinks instead of 4?
Come on Bloomberg, you're actually smarter than this, which makes me believe there is some financial gain to be had.
When we hand over our propriety to the government regarding what size sugary drinks we can have, all else will soon be lost.
This might have seemed like a 'good' idea. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Yes a people keep voting Liberal Democrats into office. You get what you deserve. I want my country back.
Back from where?
Last time I looked, it was right where it should be, between Canada and Mexico.
Oh oh, Bloomberg got in to a"socialist" conspiracy notebook.
Nobody will tell that kid what's healthy what is not, except you.
Just be a smart parent.