Will Banning Soda for Poor Families Reduce Obesity?

In an effort to curb the rising tide of obesity that is costing Empire State taxpayers $8 billion per year in health care expenses, a proposal is being considered in New York City that will ban the 1.7 million city residents receiving food stamps from purchasing soda and other sugary drinks with their benefit cards.

According to reports, New York Governor David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will ask the United States Department of Agriculture to temporarily add sugary beverages to the food stamp program's list of banned items alongside cigarettes and alcohol (among others). If approved, it will be the first time in the history of the food stamp program that an item has been banned solely because of its lack of nutritional value.

The facts related to obesity in New York City show that action is necessary and must be taken now in order to ensure that the city's children are able to grow up into healthy adults. Currently, 57 percent of adults and 40 percent of children in New York City are overweight or obese, with these numbers even higher in low-income communities.

New York is requesting a temporary change to the food stamp program so that over the next two years researchers can study the effects that a sugary drink ban would have on broader public health in the state and throughout the nation. However, it is still likely to come under criticism from advocates for the poor who say that restricting what items can be purchased with food stamps benefits unfairly stigmatizes those that are receiving federal assistance. In fact, this is the reaction many Change.org readers had when I proposed a similar ban a year ago.

However, public health officials believe that banning the purchase of sugary drinks will actually free up needed funds and not take away from the ability of food stamp recipients to feed their families.

In a recent op-ed, the state's health commissioner, Dr. Richard F. Daines, and New York City's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley,  said that if the sugary beverage ban goes into effect in the city, food stamp recipients "would still receive every penny of support they now get, meaning they would have as much, if not more, to spend on nutritious food. And they could still purchase soda if they choose — just not with taxpayer dollars.”

This is a sensitive issue for many people, but for me, it comes down to one undisputed fact: The food stamp program is a nutrition program. As such, it should be structured in a way to encourage the purchase of food items that support healthy lifestyles and not continue a cycle of obesity that is threatening to consume 75 percent of the country's population by 2015.

Photo credit: SpecialKRB