Let's talk about soda...

Good points!

The only place I'd push back is in the fast food industry's culpability in all this. Do you think the average child today KNOWS what a proper portion of a hamburger looks like? Now that's not necessarily because of their parents food choices but because McD's (and Burger King and Wendy's) started selling bigger and bigger burgers and de-emphasizing the regular sized burger (I challenge you to find the regular burger on the menu board. It's a tiny menu item in comparison to, say, a double quarter pounder, for instance).

I think obesity is a problem where there is plenty of responsibility to go around. It isn't any one person or entity's fault but to get it under control we HAVE to start working together.

Someone somewhere (maybe on the FB page) had an interesting idea. Standardization of sizes. Make all fast food restaurants use the same sizes for small, medium and large. I'd even go a step further and have them in some way label the size that is an appropriate portion size so that people can begin to know what that size is.

I admit I sometimes have a McD's burger. I get the 99 cent one that's just that little patty on a bun. That's the appropriate sized burger. If I'm feeling particularly hearty I'll get a side salad with it. But in my former life I wouldn't have done that because I didn't know I was eating quadruple the healthy size. 

Yes restaurants have gotten to the point where they dish up enough for 3 people on one plate, sometimes more, and not many people really know what a normal portion size is anymore.

As a former food server I'd serve lots of people salads and those people thought they were eating healthy because they ate a salad but when you look at the calorie count for those salads they were very high in calories over other options of sandwiches on the menu. Especially when they wanted extra full fat dressing to douse their lettuce in.

I like that places have to list the calorie/nutrition count of their foods. That was really an eye opener for many people.

Heck, it was an eye opener for ME! I was sort of resentful though. I had kinda deluded myself into believing a restaurant quesadilla was maybe 500 calories? It's more like 1,000!

I see the concern as our nation continues to struggle with obesity and obesity-related illnesses.  However, I think the government is overstepping it's boundaries in so many instances nowadays I don't want them involved in this too.  I'm glad the courts struck this down.

I did see the discussions on bariatricfoodie on FB and liked the comment made about standardize sizing in the food industry. 

Bloomberg is vowing to strike back though.

The courts didn't strike it down, though, because of intrusiveness but because it's a hard law to enforce. There are so many loopholes. Like refills. Can you buy them? If so, what's the point? And grocery stores. Why do THEY get to sell big sodas? And will the sale of those big sodas at grocery stores hurt restaurant business and, thereby, hurt the economy?

I appreciate the sentiment behind this law but it's sort of gnarly.

I don't agree with the government trying to micro manage everything that the citizens do. I don't understand how limiting the serving size in a restaurant setting is beneficial for anyone (considering most offer free refills). While I DON'T agree, I can understand their argument for only offering smaller sized bottles and cans for sell in the supermarket/convenience/bodega settings. Noting that if a body wants MORE than a 12 oz bottle of soda they would have to buy another whole bottle and therefore pay more tax which would fund the obesity driven rising healthcare costs and nutritional education in public schools.

It is not a sustainable plan, the ONLY thing that is sustainable is education about proper nutrition...the younger they start, the better.

Mark my words, the next step the BIG government is going to take is to restrict what foods can be purchased with food stamps. Citing the direct correlation between poverty and obesity....which is an oxymoron, if ever there was one...as their reasoning.

New York politicians think that they can do whatever they want...just look at their new gun laws (which we ALL know the criminals will obey, LOL).

I'm surprised they haven't tried to limit what you can buy with food stamps already.  I'm glad they haven't, just surprised they haven't, since so many people seem to think it's appropriate to try to control what others eat/drink/etc.

Ok so don't shoot me but...I don't have such a big problem with there being SOME more stringent parameters around food stamps. Not only for health reasons but for stewardship. BUT...I realize my argument is flawed because if the point of offering governmental assistance is to uphold a person's dignity AND regular taxpayers are free to buy whatever foods they want then restricting food stamps only stands to create a second class citizen standard and I know that is wrong.

But it still bugs the crap out of me when I've seen what some folks on food stamps buy (not all, but some). While I struggle to buy healthy food for my family. I'm just sayin!

(I think I just debated myself)

I hear what you're saying, but one problem is, who would get to decide what foods were "healthy" and which foods weren't?   And why should poor people that use food stamps be required to only buy/eat healthy food when other people are allowed to eat all the junk they want?

When I see someone at the grocery store with a cart full of crap, I often have less than kind thoughts about it.  But I still think it's their right to buy a cart full of crap if they want to.  And I don't think any differently about that based on how they are paying for their cart full of crap.

I will add that, several years ago when I got food stamps for a few months, I occasionally wanted a treat.  I loved Ben and Jerry's ice cream and it certainly wasn't something I could afford often at that time in my life.  I was embarrassed to pay for it with my food stamps, though.  I would make a separate trip to the store just to get the ice cream and pay cash for it.

Oh yes, yes, I agree. Which is why I struck down my own argument!

I will say though that in BALTIMORE at least someone needs to do a food stamp audit. I have a friend who has a family of four and gets almost a thousand bucks a month. She sells about half for cash and uses $500 to feed her family. So someone needs to adjust that. Same thing with other folks I know who get stamps. They only use a fraction of what they get and sell the rest. My mom used to call me stuck up because I refuse to purchase food stamps (the prevailing practice is paying half of what you use so if a person sold $300 worth of food stamps, they'd charge you $150). But that's a whole other thread.