Low-fat, low-cal, low-carb. Atkins, South Beach, The Zone. 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 demonized 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. Not that these drinks are the only cause — genetics, exercise and other factors are involved — but that they are one cause, perhaps the leading cause.
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.
The minute soda gets tagged with warning labels or taxes the trial lawyers are going to take over and use the warning/tax as a "link to obesity" that their clients "weren't aware of." "Big Soda" will get sued, the price of a six pack will skyrocket and you'll have to show an ID to buy it.
Why? All because these nanny-state blowhards don't think you're capable of regulating your own diet.
What's sad is that many people will go along with these restrictions on their freedoms. At first it will be about keep soda away from the children (because all of these bleeding heart liberal initiatives to save the world start with "its for the children"), then it will be about keeping soda away from everybody.
If I want to eat 15 Big Macs a day and wash it all down with 20 sodas, that's my business. Oh, sure, my health decisions might impact your insurance under the current system. Big deal. That's a commentary on a system of insurance that makes the collective, rather than the individual, responsible for health decisions. It is not a reason to start infringing on my freedom to eat and drink what I want.
I have long said on this blog that the tobacco lawsuits would lead to a slippery slope where the same people try to do the same thing to other things that are "bad for us," all in the name of public health. Now you see it is happening, and what's next? Your hamburgers and french fries? Your salt? The amount of time you spend watching television or using the internet? Sound implausible?
A couple of years back it the idea of restrictions on the sale of soda probably seemed implausible too, yet here we are.