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Banned Soda Rebuttal

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Banned Soda Rebuttal
Banned Soda’s

Aldo Perez

BCOM/275

Kevin Harris

October 9, 2012

Obesity is a major issue in the United States of America. What defines a person obese is the minimum of thirty percent over their average body weight. It is also the leading causes of poor medical conditions such as, Type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and heart disease. Poor food choices (high in sugar, saturated and trans fats), lack of exercise (sedentary lifestyles), and lack of sleep are several factors that lead to weight gain. There was an article in the New York Post three weeks ago that relates to one of the factors of weight gain. This article was Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s proposal to ban the sale of sugary sodas above sixteen ounces. This proposal would only affect restaurants, theaters, and sports venues. Grocery stores or vending machines will not be affected with the soda ban in any way. Yet, in my opinion, sodas are not the only problem that increases obesity. As an example of a similar proposal, studies have shown that the ban of sodas in schools did not decrease weight gain. Sometimes we have to look deeper into the source of where the problem began such as childhood diets. A solution is to add more healthy nutritional courses available to colleges and universities, since students are introduced into a work related environment, and can manage the skills of time related issues when dieting. In a busy city like New York, this skill can come in handy, and not become vulnerable to the independent high in saturated fat restaurants. Mayor Bloomberg stated, “It is the single biggest step any government has taken to attack obesity.”(Goldenberg). Obviously the school already conducted such a proposal and Bloomberg did not do any research on the issue. In recent articles, the proposal did pass with a eight to zero vote, with one abstention. (Goldenberg). The single abstention did mention, “This is not comprehensive…It is not enough…It’s only one

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