To Gulp or to Sip? Debating a Crackdown on Big Sugary Drinks - New York Times

Gas guzzlers, McMansions, Walmart, Costco: If one thing is certain about American consumer culture it is that bigger is better, especially if it is cheaper.

So more than a few New Yorkers took it especially hard Thursday when they learned that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wanted to take away their plus-size sodas in restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, arenas and mobile food carts, as a way, he said, of fighting obesity.

Patrick Piatt, 48, and his wife Linda Perez, 46, who were eating at a Wendy’s on 125th Street in Harlem, said they got more value by buying and sharing their 20-ounce lemonade, which would be four ounces too many once the new rules take effect. “For him to dictate, he’s outstepping his bounds,” Ms. Perez said. Her husband said that Mr. Bloomberg was looking down on them: “This is a man who has two standards. One for him and one for everyone else.”

Another diner, Monica Dauphine, 44, who was sharing a 32-ounce Sprite, gave the mayor credit for his good intentions, but said: “You can’t force it. It’s like dictatorship. I’m sorry, but if you want to be obese, you want to be obese.”

Reaction to the proposal came from many fronts on Thursday, falling along two general tracks. The idea was either sound health policy rooted in research, or a perfect illustration of a supersize government gone too far.

Some health experts said there might be some correlation between restrictions on soft drinks â€" many locales, including New York, already ban or limit them from schools â€" and a leveling off, or in some places even a decline, in childhood obesity. But one researcher whose work was cited by City Hall in defense of the policy said in an interview Thursday that he did not think it would work.

At least two candidates for next year’s mayoral race also came out against the proposal Thursday, to varying degrees. Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, said that by limiting personal choice, rather than promoting knowledge, “It seems to me to be more on the punitive side of things.” And William C. Thompson Jr., the former city comptroller who lost to Mr. Bloomberg in 2009, released a statement saying: “This move does nothing to teach people about positive nutritional values and sounds more like parlor talk than real solutions for the obesity epidemic.”

The proposed ban â€" the first in the nation â€" would prohibit the sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces, though consumers would not be prohibited from getting refills or multiple servings.  It would apply to virtually the entire range of drinks from energy drinks to iced teas, but not to diet sodas, fruit juices, dairy drinks and alcoholic beverages, or to beverages sold in groceries or convenience stores. It would take effect in March 2013, after public hearings.

Anticipating the reaction, the mayor’s office released a long list of statements from supportive groups, like the United Way, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Obesity Society, some of whom longingly noted the bygone days of the six-ounce bottle. Kelly D. Brownell director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, said in an interview that he understood how consumers might feel, because, “of course, Americans love value.”

But he hastened to add that he was on the mayor’s side, and that portion control was critical to calorie control. Research, he said, shows that though people believe they will eat just until they have satiated their hunger, in reality, “when people are served more, they consume more.”

Dr. Brownell believes people will quickly become conditioned to the 16-ounce limit and not feel cheated. “You’ll set a new norm,” he said. “Just like everybody in the country used to smoke, and there’s a new norm now.”

There is evidence that a health-conscious public has turned against sodas already, said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been leading the charge against sugary sodas for many years.

Since peaking in 1998, American consumption of carbonated sugary drinks has fallen by 24 percent, or 10 gallons, to 31.3 gallons per capita in 2011, Dr. Jacobson said. That 10 gallons works out to about 100 fewer cans of soda a year.

Dr. Jacobson attributed the decline to a rise in general health consciousness, the availability of bottled water, low-carbohydrate diets like the Atkins and the South Beach, the removal of soft drinks from schools and the growing publicity of information linking soft drinks to obesity and diabetes.

Childhood obesity appears to be leveling off across the country, and even declining slightly in New York City and Los Angeles, though the reasons are unclear.

Michael M. Grynbaum and Alex Vadukul contributed reporting.