Alcohol, Tobacco, and... Sugar?

As loyal readers of this blog know, I don’t often enter the political arena. I find that once people go into the particular arena, one of the requirements is that they must check their common sense and ability to stay level-headed at the door. Thus, what often ends up happening is you have two people at different places on the political spectrum who end up yelling at each so much that they miss the fact that their views aren’t really that different after all.

As most people in the country know, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City recently proposed a law which would prohibit convenience stores and restaurants from selling soda in quantities larger than 16 ounces. Immediately, people came out from every angle against the law. Some people said it was an unforgivable infringement upon personal choice. Others said the law didn’t go nearly far enough. Some dieticians and nutritionists came out and said that in the war against obesity, soda and other sugary drinks wasn’t even the place where attention should be directed.

So who is right and who is wrong? Strangely enough, that isn’t the question I want to address. It is entirely possible that better things can be done to combat obesity than banning sugary beverages. The issue I’d like to address is whether or not this sort of law should even be permitted. My short answer; of course it is.

Is banning large sodas the best way to combat obesity? No. While Mayor Bloomberg’s law prohibits 32 ounce sodas, there is nothing (that I’ve seen or heard of) to prevent one person from purchasing 2 beverages of 16 ounces each. There are also those that I mentioned above who believe that sugary beverages have a relatively small effect on obesity rates. However, at least Mayor Bloomberg is trying to do something while the rest of the nation sits down to their supersized extra-value meal*.

(*at this point I feel the need to point out that by the rudimentary calculations taking into account only height and weight, I have a BMI over 30 which is considered “obese”. I am not part of the solution. The purpose of this post is not to solve the obesity epidemic in American; it is simply to examine the attempts of someone in a position of power to help combat the epidemic.)

LIMITS TO PERSONAL FREEDOMS

Now, I arrive at the counter-argument that has gotten the most traction; personal freedom. Many people believe that their personal freedoms are theirs and cannot be limited or infringed upon and I cannot possibly express how wrong that sentiment is. One of the most basic right guaranteed by the Constitution is the right to freedom of speech. However, there are limits to free speech and everyone knows it. You can’t walk into a crowded movie theater and yell “fire”. You could be found liable (criminally, civilly, or both) for any injuries or property damage that happens in the ensuing panic.

There are many cities where smoking in certain public places is illegal. In Colorado, where I live, you can’t smoke in a bar. Now, it just so happens that I am not a smoker so this limit to personal freedom does not affect me in any way. However, once upon a time a large portion the friends that I hung out with on a regular basic were smokers and their personal freedoms were infringed upon.

Drinking and driving, seatbelt laws, and motorcycle helmet laws all limit personal freedom and yet they still exist. How can they possibly exist when they blatantly infringe upon the personal freedom s and the pursuit of an individual’s happiness?

To answer that question, one simply needs to widen their gaze. To quote Spock’s dying words from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

Everything that I mentioned above (obesity, smoking, drinking and driving, driving without a seatbelt, riding a motorcycle without a helmet) has the potential to adversely affect other Americans. For two of them, the effects are obvious; second-hand smoke and traffic collisions caused by drunk drivers but what about the other three; how do they affect anyone else? The answer is health care costs.

According to a column published in Reuters at the end of April (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/obesity-costs-dollars-cents_n_1463763.html), there are $190 billion in medical costs every year due to obesity. The average overweight person (amongst employees surveyed who work for the Mayo clinic) spends $1,850 more per year in medical costs than a person who is a healthy weight. For people in that sample with a BMI between 35 and 40, that number jumps to $3,086 per year. For employees with a BMI over 40, they spent $5,530 more per year than the healthy weight person. For comparison’s sake, smoker’s medical costs were, on average, $1,274 higher than non-smokers.

Here are a few tidbits that you’ve probably never thought of; airlines spend approximately $5 billion more on jet fuel flying around heavier Americans (compared to average weights of Americans in 1960). Also, Americans purchase roughly $4 billion more gasoline for their cars on an annual basis because of the heavier passenger load.

So what? People pay for their own gasoline, they pay their own medical bills, and they pay increased airfare because of the additional jet fuel required…

What if they can’t?

This is the crux of the issue and this is where the government has the right to infringe on personal freedoms; when their actions are for the public good. People who cannot pay for their medical care or who have no health insurance or insufficient health insurance are still treated to some degree. Many of them are fully treated. Who pays for that treatment? The hospital would most likely be paid by an insurance company or the government. Who pays insurance companies or the government?

You and me; everyone who has health insurance or pays taxes. Therefore, a person’s individual choices made under the guise of personal freedom and “it’s my life, I can do what I want” have a profound effect on others who make completely different decisions with their own lives.

The question that arises out of this is why should I have to pay for decisions that others make with their own lives? The answer is that I shouldn’t have to but the problem is that that is exactly what is happening. Laws have been put in place restricting the use of alcohol and tobacco because of their potential to affect people other than the user.

The elephant in the room is that obesity is now one of the top causes of preventable death in the United States and it’s on the rise. Currently, the CDC estimates that 35.7% of American adults are obese and all of the predictions say that number will only increase in the coming years and decades.

Those statistics are great but what exactly do they mean? I don’t claim to be a legal scholar but I feel extremely confident in saying when the behavior of one person exacts a toll (be it physical or monetary) from another person who is not partaking in that behavior, the government is well within their rights to pass a law that restricts that behavior. Like it or not, the government has a responsibility to protect the greater good. If individual freedoms were more important than the public good, drinking and driving would be legal and you’d be able to light up a cigarette anywhere.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND THE FUTURE

I am not saying I support a law so easy to circumvent that all you have to do is add the number “2” to an order. In fact, I don’t. All I am saying is I support a public servant’s attempt to try and reverse the trend and fight an epidemic that is the number one public health issue of the 21st century. Perhaps a tax on fast food will both reduce our consumption of it and also help alleviate the cost to the public to treat health problems stemming from obesity. I know that it will not be an easy fix and at very least I applaud Mayor Bloomberg for trying to do something.

The fact of the matter remains as it always has that laws are infringements upon personal freedoms. Laws are in place to serve the greater good and when an individual puts their own personal freedoms ahead of the greater public good, the government has the ability and the responsibility to step in and regulate that behavior. It doesn’t matter if the action is eating unhealthily when you are uninsured or if it’s drinking and driving or stealing a car or physically harming someone. Obesity is an epidemic of epic proportions and it’s only getting worse and it’s only a matter of time until obesity becomes the number one cause of preventable death in the United States (it may have already, I saw conflicting reports). On top of death and disease, obesity has racked up a huge healthcare bill that is being borne by everyone and there is nothing fair about that. The only protection for the people who pay their health insurance premiums and their taxes comes from the government.

While enacting laws in the name of the “public good” is a slippery slope, there is no logical reason for people to have to pay for the decisions of others.