by Doug Allen
Amy Fairchild weighs the arguments for and against Bloomberg’s suspended soda ban:
From the glass-half-empty perspective, the policy is a drop in the bucket of what would be required to solve the obesity problem. Setting limits on just a single behavior, in the face of all the other unhealthy choices we must avoid (fried foods, excessive portions, carbohydrates galore), can hardly be expected to turn the obesity tide. Moreover, because the ban contains all kinds of loopholes — it doesn’t set limits on refills, for instance, and it excludes (“on suspect grounds”) “other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories” — the charge that it is “arbitrary and capricious” may strike opponents as more descriptive than acerbic. (1)
But from the glass-half-full point of view, the ban is not about attacking individual choice but rather about limiting corporate damage. If we see supersized drinks not in terms of the individual’s freedom to be foolish but instead as a kind of industrial pollution that is super-concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods, (2) limits on drink size become a far different kind of regulatory measure. The target is not the individual: it is the beverage industry, corporate America.
I’ll admit, I have a much more favorable view of this particular act of Bloomberg “nannyism” than Andrew does.Part of that comes from growing up with a pediatric endocrinologist in the house: I spent a lot of my own childhood hearing about children struggling with obesity. I also view this policy as more of a Sunstein/Thaler-style “nudge” than a real ban. If you really need 64 ounces of soda, you’d be able to get it, either through refills or another purchase. In fact, contra Fairchild, I think the refill loophole is a plus as it helps to make this a much softer form of paternalism.
I think that the climbing obesity rates, especially among children, are problematic enough that they merit some sort of action. If the ban is ever reinstated by the courts, it may well prove to be ineffective at reducing caloric intake, at which point I would argue for its repeal. But I think we have to start somewhere, and this seems like a reasonable first step.
The Dish 