Who Makes Healthy Food Choices for You?
New York wants to stop people who use food stamps from buying soda and other sweetened beverages. With grave concerns about obesity in general and childhood obesity in particular, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Patterson are arguing the way to promote healthy food choices is to redefine soda so it’s not a food. It can’t be a healthy food choice if it’s not a food.
Now, I don’t like soda. The bubbles, they make me uncomfortable, and I don’t think I have to get into the plastic bottle situation. But I also don’t like the deeply cynical and socially divisive strategy the Mayor and Governor are using to limit the amount of soda sold and consumed.
We all need to teach our children healthy eating habits and model them ourselves. Bloomberg got transfats out of New York restaurants, making some food choices de facto very slightly healthy food choices. But at a time (and in a city) where the difference between the haves and have nots is profound, is it a good idea to tell people they can’t buy what they want with the food support available?
Nutrition for kids is a big deal. Parents, caregivers and educators need to teach kids how to make good food choices for themselves. Is it empowering to tell a caregiver she doesn’t know how to buy healthy food for kids or establish healthy habits in her household by saying she doesn’t know not to buy soda? And what happens when the kids in houses who use food stamps get a stomach bug? Who’s going to get them some flat Ginger Ale?
Is soda a food? I don’t even know how to answer that question. But I think if the Mayor wants to say “No it’s not” he needs to make it not a food for everyone and not just those who already have enough on their plates and not enough money to pay for it. What do you think?
I can only imagine that the concern over the BMIs of our most desperate fellow citizens is entirely altruistic.
“But at a time (and in a city) where the difference between the haves and have nots is profound, is it a good idea to tell people they can’t buy what they want with the food support available?”
Robin, I am a pediatric dietitian working in an urban setting. 75% of the children I see on a daily basis are obese. I am no longer shocked by a 4 year old with high triglycerides, or a 7 year old who is pre-diabetic, or liver panels that rival alcoholics. I could go on and on with the horrors of childhood obesity. But what I will never become immune to is the depression and social isolation from bullying and self-loathing.
Your comment makes me feel frustrated because it’s not the right message to be sending. Soda is NOT food. It is not some “human right” – it is actually non-nutritive calories, and the number 1 contributor to childhood obesity (second is snacking). “Have nots” do not need soda. This won’t cheer them up, nor will it make hard times any easier. In fact, it makes them worse. Soda, like cigarettes and trans-fats, only add to the burden of our burgeoning health care system, and add to the epidemic of childhood obesity that will cripple the future of this country.
Deirdre Pizzoferrato
Beanstalk Express
Well it would seem that certain parents cannot or do not want to teach thier kids about healthy eating. However, that is not the point, the point is that soda a crap, junk food is not essential to live. So why should a person be given money to buy it? The entire system should be set up to where a person can only by FOOD not junk and then maybe they will get a job and buy thier own damn mountain dew.
Okay…I’m usually not one to ask for more government regulation/redefinition of anything, but I seriously do want soda (regular and diet) redefined as a non-food. States and localities could make a decent buck by applying the existing sales tax to soda, and while I don’t like the broader move to keep food stamps from paying for any sweetened drink (I think even poor folks can handle the decision to buy a Hi-C drink box or a chocolate milk chug once in a while) I honestly wouldn’t cry over food stamps not covering soda. Soda is worse than 10% juice Sunny D or chocolate milk because of the carbonation that ruins teeth and eventually kidneys and it really has no redeeming value. It has no vitamins or calcium or other minerals or protein or fat and it doesn’t stave off hunger the way actual junk food would.
I don’t believe soda is a food but it does contain water which is more important to life than food so I guess I couldn’t support New York in this proposal.
I fully concur with this move. Soda is not food, it’s water that’s been bastardized with sugar, and coloring. It has no redeeming qualities. None, except creating cavities and fat bodies.
Does anybody else remember when things like soda and chocolate milk were treats to be enjoyed on rare and special occasions?
“Your comment makes me feel frustrated because it’s not the right message to be sending. Soda is NOT food. It is not some “human right” –it is actually non-nutritive calories, and the number 1 contributor to childhood obesity (second is snacking).”
Hmmmmmmmm. I think I’d put the proliferation of processed foods on the top of that list.
@ Linda: Yes! You are absolutely right. The snacks that I’m referring to are not apples and carrot sticks. They are highly processed snack foods. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify!
The problem becomes what else can be defined as non-food and having no redeeming qualities? Who gets to decide? No soda, no candy, no chips, no cake mix? No applesauce with sugar? No applesauce only apples? No “snack” foods? What about cereal? Some have very little sugar, some have enough sugar to be void of nutritional value? Who is going to watch all the check-out lanes of the 1 in 9 Americans on food stamps. Let’s focus our efforts on getting crap like this out of school breakfasts and school lunches and school vending machines. Once we have done our due diligence there – in our nations public schools, where we ask kid to do and be there best no matter how much money their parents have – I’d be more open to monitoring what people are bringing home.
The fact is that soda is not essential and unhealthy. And as far as the government being involved in the decision – if they’re paying for the food, then they should be controlling what is bought – including soda, sweets, etc.
They’re not stopping anyone from buying soda, they’re stopping them from using tax dollars to purchase it… there’s a big difference. When my daughter was little we qualified for WIC, a tax funded food assistance program unrelated to food stamps, but what we could purchase was regulated. We could only get things like fresh fruits and veggies, lowfat milk, cheese, certain (healthy) cereals, 100% juice, whole wheat bread, etc. We had plenty to eat and I never felt bullied by the restrictions because they made perfect sense to me… and yes, occasionally we splurged and bought things like soda or chips (with our own money) because things like soda and chips are suppose to be fun occasional splurges. In my opinion food stamps should take a note from WIC and run their system in a similar fashion.
If NYC is going to restrict soda, I agree with the proposal that it should be subject to non-food sales taxes as well – that way, people who do make the decision to buy it are bearing some of the extra costs the supporters of that proposal feel are associated with the product. However, in that case, perhaps the same rule should extend to other things that the commenters here might be less unified on whether or not they are “food” – processed lunchmeats? Processed cereals (i.e., not oatmeal.) Cheddar bunnies, which every parent on Babble seems to feed his or her kids? Hey, what about formula? If “food” means only raw, natural ingredients and nothing man-made, perhaps we should prevent families on food stamps from buying formula as well. After all, if they can buy dairy and soy milks, and fats and vitamin supplements, surely they can make their own? I guess I just don’t see where you stop once you make this call, and I am concerned that people – perhaps, mostly white and middle to upper class people, who have time and inclination to read blogs like this – find it very easy to make these judgments with respect to the diets of others – particularly, poorer others who tend to be of difference races. It’s harder, perhaps, to confront the impact of higher taxes on foods they might eat – such as those listed above. How comfortable would commenters be including those?