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Water's next. |
Posted on 03/05/2006 7:09:35 PM PST by voletti
ATKINS: Food fads may be distracting attention from something more insidiously piling on pounds: beverages.
One of every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation’s single biggest “food” is soda, and nutrition experts have long demonised it.
Now they are escalating the fight.
In reports to be published in science journals this week, two groups of researchers hope to add evidence to the theory that soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks don’t just go hand-in-hand with obesity, but actually cause it.
A small point? In reality, proving this would be a scientific leap that could help make the case for higher taxes on soda, restrictions on how and where it is sold — maybe even a surgeon general’s warning on labels. “We’ve done it with cigarettes,” said one scientist advocating this, Barry Popkin at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Comparing soda and obesity to tobacco and lung cancer is a baseless crusade, industry spokesmen say. “I think that’s laughable,” said Richard Adamson, a senior science consultant to the American Beverage Association. Lack of exercise and poor eating habits are far bigger contributors to America’s weight woes, he said. “The science is being stretched,” said Adam Drewnowski, director of nutritional sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. He owns stock in beverage companies and has done extensive research in the field, much of it financed by industry but also some by government.
However, those making the case against soda include some of the nation’s top obesity researchers at prestigious institutions like Harvard and Yale. “There are many different lines of evidence, just like smoking,” said Dr David Ludwig, a Harvard pediatrician who wants a “fat tax” on fast food and drinks.
Beverage companies seem worried. Some are making sodas “healthier” by adding calcium and vitamins, and pushing fortified but sugary sports drinks in schools that ban soda. This could help them duck any regulations aimed at “empty calorie” drinks, said Jennifer Follett, a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutritionist at the University of California in Davis.
Proving that something causes disease is not easy. It took decades with tobacco, asbestos and other substances now known to cause cancer, and met strong industry opposition. It would be especially tough for a disease as complex as obesity.
Diet is hard to study. Most people drink at least some sweetened beverages and also get calories from other drinks like milk and orange juice, diluting the strength of any observations about excess weight from soda alone.
Children are growing and gaining weight naturally, “so we have this added complication” of trying to determine how much extra gain is due to sweet-drink consumption, said Alison Field, a nutrition expert at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital in Boston. “Given these caveats, it’s amazing the association we do see,” she said.
She was among hundreds of scientists who packed a “mock trial” of such drinks at a conference of the Obesity Society last year in Vancouver, British Columbia. Here is the “food police” indictment of soda and its sugar-sweetened co-conspirators.
Count One: Guilt by association. Soft drink consumption rose more than 60 percent among adults and more than doubled in kids from 1977-97. The prevalence of obesity roughly doubled in that time.
Count Two: Physical evidence. Biologically, the calories from sugar-sweetened beverages are fundamentally different in the body than those from food.
The main sweetener in soda — high-fructose corn syrup — can increase fats in the blood called triglycerides, which raises the risk of heart problems, diabetes and other health woes.
Count Three: Bad influence on others. Sugar-sweetened beverages affect the intake of other foods, such as lowering milk consumption. Popkin contends they also may be psychological triggers of poor eating habits and cravings for fast food.
Count Four: Consistency of evidence. Many studies of different types link sugary drinks and weight gain or obesity. Some even show a “dose-response” relationship — as consumption rises, so does weight. ap
Gotta love Splenda!
And that's what it's all about.
New taxes coming...
Why stop there?
The next steps will be to tax high glycemic index foods (cakes, corn, rice), then foods considered high fat, etc. etc. etc.
All without showing a correlation between the amount of harm allegedly caused by these foods and the level of the tax. And without any guarantee that these taxes would necesarily be applied to addressing those alleged harms.
Once imposed, these taxes never, ever go away -- even if they do result in so-called "healthier living" and reduced medical claims.
Friggin' nannystaters.
Man if I drank as many regular Pepsi's as I do diet Pepsi's each day, I would weigh twice my 150 pounds!
And the mob claps its little hands at the prospect of another black market to get into...
Here's an idea: Let's tax movies, magazine articles, TV shows, radio shows, etc. that promote homosexual lifestyles and intravenous drug use, as those lifestyles are more prone to contracting AIDS.
Call it the Brokebaxx Taxx.
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Water's next. |
As a smoker, I hope they not only tax soda, I hope they ban it from restaurants and bars. I'd wager the loudest ones yelling about smokers are those addicted to soda. BTW, diet soda is carbonated--ban it. /sarcasm
A small point? In reality, proving this would be a scientific leap that could help make the case for higher taxes on soda, restrictions on how and where it is sold — maybe even a surgeon general’s warning on labels. “We’ve done it with cigarettes,” said one scientist advocating this, Barry Popkin at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
I think all these taxes are discriminatory on the people using these products. We should tax something that everybody uses. Like air. Yeah, that's it. Let's tax air.
Yep! That suits me to a "T"!
I've been called worse things than a do-sie!
THat being said, rather than ban soda, or put a tax on it, stop the subsidies and protectionism of the U.S. sugar industry so beverage manufacturers can afford to use real sugar again. THe only soda I'm aware of on the market that uses real sugar is Red Bull and it's $2 for a small can.
It's interesting that obesity is now a "disease", like cancer. Except unlike the other, real diseases, we already have the cure. People just need to get off their fat butts & do something. It's more of the fact of the "blame others" culture that we're in today. No one says "I'm fat cause I'm lazy", because that would hurt their self-esteem./rant off.
I'm glad someone else has spoken up on this issue. I've been concerned about secondhand carbon dioxide and the possible negative health effects for years now. I literally can't stand it when someone opens up a can of soda next to me. Next thing you know, they're belching and exhaling and it's all I can do not to pull out my oxygen mask. /s
Get the kids outside away from the computer, video games, etc.
I've been drinking sodas and eating junk food all of my life and I'm average weight. Same pant size as I was in H.S.
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