Fat: NY The sugar police

 

POLITICIANS IN THE PANTRY
Dr. Yvonne Kleine sounds off on Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson’s banning of soft drinks from folks on food stamps.
October 9, 2010
The recent press conference by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson has my blood boiling.  Banning soft drinks from folks on food stamps may seem like a good idea, but as a nutritionist who has dedicated her life to healthy eating and holistic habits of health, I think it stinks. Politically using those of us who have to depend on food stamps for their daily nutrition is just nasty and mean, and it is just one step further to control our daily lives. 
Nobody should be drinking huge amounts of soft drinks. But since when should a megalomaniac like Bloomberg tell anyone what they can eat and drink?  What’s next, butter, cake mix, bagels?
Bloomberg’s ban on smoking has done nothing but drive smokers underground or outside where they can be seen pitifully puffing away in even the foulest weather.  You know I hate smoking,  but have we not learned anything from Prohibition?  People drank more than at any other time, because human nature dictates that if something is forbidden, we want it even more.  If smoking is that bad, then stop selling cigarettes and collecting the enormous tax revenue they provide.
I’m really surprised at the Governor for going along with this latest foray into totalitarianism that Mayor Bloomberg seems to enjoy so much.  With all the troubles in Albany, when we have politicians who cannot  run the state in a professional manner, I would think his concerns should be a bit more pressing than if someone has a six pack of Coke in their cart. Of course, he is out in just a few weeks, so why not go along with this little bully?
All of this overweening control disturbs me and I find it frightening.  Little by little, our freedoms are being eroded.  We have already been victimized by the atrocious concept of politically correct speech, and now these ideologues are creating politically correct food.
Let me be very clear.  I don’t recommend and do not believe that it is a good thing to drink or consume large amounts of sugar in any form.  However, if we are going to talk about obesity and diabetes, let’s get real.  Obesity can be hereditary as well as result from overeating and drinking.  How many children are leading sedentary lives, both at school where they basically sit for five hours, or at home where they sit at a computer?
Gone are the days when kids went outside and played vigorously for a couple of hours before they went in for homework and dinner. Not enough of them are involved in physical activity.  Drinking soda or even sugary juices is not the only culprit.  Yes, obesity contributes to the development of Diabetes and other disorders, but a cold can of pop on a hot day isn’t going to lead you directly to a lifetime of insulin.
The poor are sometimes obese because they eat a lot of carbohydrates. They are filling and calm the body’s hunger as well as stretch to feed hungry children.  Further stigmatizing of our neighbors and friends who are in need, more of us than ever in our history, is cruel and flies in the face of our Judeo-Christian ethic. Bloomberg and his ilk have an addiction for which there is no cure and that is the unquenchable thirst for more and more power and control over their constituents.
It is the same insidious, fanatical  behavior that kept Alternative Practice in the shadows, forced geniuses like Burzynski and Burton off shore to continue to cure cancers, and suppressed every form of natural healing.  It is against freedom.  And freedom means we are allowed to make stupid choices. Heaven knows, the politicians have made more of those than you or I ever will.

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DOC FRIEDEN’S FOOD VOODOO
By ELIZABETH M. WHELAN
January 23, 2008 — THE city Health Department yesterday passed new regulations forcing some restaurants to post calorie content for all the food on the menu board. Though the department claims the rules will promote public health, they’re really nothing but a spiteful attack on fast-food restaurants.
The regulations cover about 10 percent of NYC restaurants, those with more than 15 city franchises. Yet – though growing obesity has real, negative public-health effects – the rules don’t serve the public good. Here’s why:
* These restaurants typically already provide ample information on their foods’ calorie content. Most not only have calorie counts on their Web sites, but also charts on their walls, food wrappers and placemats.
The vast majority of the other 90 percent of NYC’s restaurants provide no calorie info – yet that’s just fine with city public-health officials.
* There’s no evidence the calorie info is of much use to real consumers. Surveys regularly tell us that most people don’t have a clue how many calories a day are appropriate for them. So how does a menu-board warning that a cheeseburger supplies 300 calories help them avoid obesity?
* And, while there’s zero evidence that menu-board postings combat obesity, there’s solid evidence that the requirement will be a logistical nightmare for restaurants. Want mayo with that? The calorie counts will differ. Indeed, different versions of any dish will provide varied calories.
The Health Department is ordering restaurants to change how they market food and to bear the burden of the expense and confusion this entails – all without any evidence that the move advances public health. The rules simply represent a penalty on the restaurants.
Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden last weekend revealed the mean-spiritedness here. Noting the restaurants’ displeasure with the requirement, he said, “It is unfortunate that we are at the point that the restaurant industry, or parts of it, are so ashamed of what they are serving that they’d rather go to court than put [the information] where people would actually see it.”
Ashamed? The restaurants in question already make full disclosure. The issue’s not failure to disclose – just resistance to pointless, cumbersome makework.
As for Frieden’s flip talk of restaurants “going to court,” members of the Health Department have said they’d welcome such lawsuits – because that would open up a “discovery” process whereby, officials claim, they could find hidden documents to prove that the restaurants are using cigarette-company-like tactics to lure people (especially children) into eating unhealthy, addictive food.
The city has initiated a war against fast-food restaurants – a war that has nothing much to do with the advancement of public health and everything to do with an attack on highly successful, profit-making businesses that sell good-tasting food most New Yorkers love.
Activists have declared fast-food restaurants the No. 1 villain in their supposed campaign against obesity. The new rules pander to that prejudice – but are a phony “quick fix” for a far more complicated problem.
It’s a real shame: The Health Department deserves a chief who’s truly interested in the public good, rather than in winning headlines by jumping on foolish, pseudo-scientific fads. Let’s hope the restaurants fight back – and win.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.

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Seniors Balk at Ban on Free Doughnuts

2007-09-23
By JIM FITZGERALD
MAHOPAC, N.Y (Sept. 23) – It was just another morning at the senior center: Women were sewing, men were playing pool – and seven demonstrators, average age 76, were picketing outside, demanding doughnuts.

Senior citizens in Mahopac, N.Y., on Sept. 13 protest the county’s decision to stop serving free doughnuts, pies and breads at senior centers.

They wore sandwich boards proclaiming, “Give Us Our Just Desserts” and “They’re Carbs, Not Contraband.”

At issue is a decision to refuse free doughnuts, pies and breads that were being donated to senior centers around Putnam County, north of New York City. Officials were concerned that the county was setting a bad nutritional precedent by providing mounds of doughnuts and other sweets to seniors.

The picketers said they were objecting not to a lack of sweets but that they weren’t consulted about the ban.

“Lack of respect is what it’s all about,” said Joe Hajkowski, 75, a former labor u nion official who organized the demonstration. He said officials had implied that seniors were gorging themselves on jelly doughnuts and were too senile to make the choice for themselves.

What’s Your Take?

C. Michael Sibilia said, “I’m 86, not 8.”

Inside, some seniors said they missed the doughnuts but others said they were glad to see them go.

“It was disgusting the way people went after them,” said 80-year-old Rita Jorgensen. “I think the senior center did them a favor by taking it away.”

Stan Tuttle, coordinator of nutritional services for the county’s Office for the Aging, said the program had gotten out of control. As many as 16 cases of breads, cakes and pastries were delivered, by various means, to the William Koehler Memorial Senior Center each day. Some were moldy and some had been stored overnight in the trunks of volunteers’ cars, he said.

Caregivers there and elsewhere say the doughnut debate illustrates the difficulty of balancing nutrition and choice when providing meals to the elderly.

“Senior citizens can walk down to the store and buy doughnuts. Nobody’s stopping them,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington.

But he notes that older people have high rates of heart disease and high blood pressure and says senior citizen centers, nursing homes and assisted-living centers should not be worsening the health problems of seniors.

At the North East Bronx Senior Citizen Center, lunch is served five times a week (suggested contribution $1.50).

“We don’t tell them what to do, we don’t force them to eat what’s good for them. But we certainly don’t give them anything that’s bad for them,” said center director Silvia Ponce.

The church-basement senior center, one of 325 under the New York City Department for the Aging, has a mostly Italian-American clientele, a Naples-born cook and a menu that includes eggplant parmigiana, linguini with clams and manicotti.

“We try to give them what they like,” said the cook, Stella Bruno.

The lunches have to supply one-third of the federal minimum daily requirements in such categories as calories, protein, vitamin C and vitamin A, said Chris Miller, spokesman for the department.

The Bronx center offers coffee, tea, bagels and rolls in the morning, but nothing in the doughnut family.

“The sweetest thing here is the raisin in the raisin bagel,” said Nicholas Volpicella, 87.

Maureen Janowski, director of nutrition resources for Morrison Senior Dining in Atlanta, which provides meals at more than 370 senior living communities, says residents’ food preferences depend somewhat on their age. Those born between 1901 and 1925 generally prefer meat and potatoes, and those born between 1925 and 1942 are “a little more trendy, a little more adventurous, a lot more nutrition-savvy,” she said.

“They have choices, and we show them how to make good choices,” she said.

At the Bronx center, Bruno said she tries to help the seniors avoid the bad buffet choices when they take a trip to Atlantic City. As a group was departing, she handed them bag lunches – with a roast beef sandwich, cranberry juice and carrot sticks.

“Protein, vitamin C, vitamin A,” she said.

Obesity, Stigmatized

August 12, 2007
To the Editor:

The antismoking movement started to gain traction when in the 1980s the public began to fear exposure to the smoke of others. This perceptual change precipitated laws and social attitudes that turned smokers into pariahs. Millions gave up the habit if for no other reason than to regain social acceptance.

Now that some scientists assert that being overweight may adversely affect the health of others, secondhand obesity (“You, Your Friends, Your Friends of Friends,” Week in Review, Aug. 5), perhaps the obese may be stigmatized into being more physically active and choosing more healthful foods.

Stephen Helfer
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 7, 2007

Bold Bloomy blows top
NY Daily News – June 15, 2006
Bloomberg cited obesity and diabetes resulting from obesity as growing major public health care problems in the country.
“Nobody is willing to stand up and focus on it, and it will require social changes forced on people by law, as well as social changes that people take up voluntarily,” he said, without elaborating.

NY Sun
June 15, 2006
Mr. Bloomberg said governments should be using the law to mandate behavior when necessary. He said encouraging people to change behaviors through advertising campaigns is important, but is not enough. He quoted Mark Twain, saying, “Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive, but lightning does the work.
“That has been demonstrated time and again, in areas ranging from mandatory vaccination to requiring automobile seatbelts and reducing drunk driving,” he said.
Read

Chew on this: a city agency all about food
By Marion Nestle, a Paulette Goddard professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and author of “What to Eat.”
NY Daily News – June 15, 2006
…What we need is a unified, coordinated city food system that promotes better choices and in the process, combats both hunger and obesity. Such an agency would rethink how city agencies buy food, where and how supermarkets are sited, how children and parents learn about healthful diets, and how those in need can access food security programs. Most of all, it will require collaboration among city agencies that have little history of working together.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) have proposed just such a plan. It would create a new entity responsible for analysis and coordination of the city’s food system, analogous to the role of an executive chef who makes sure the right food is bought, correctly prepared and served on time. This would ensure access to nutritious food, help coordinate practices among agencies, and oversee other food and nutrition initiatives proposed by the City Council – among them increasing the number of farmers’ markets in low-income communities, improving the way food stamps are accepted at farmers’ markets and linking public health insurance and school meals enrollments to the food stamp program.
A coordinated city food system agency would help us attain a basic human rights goal: a New York where every neighborhood – even the South Bronx – has an ample supply of affordable, nutritious food and where no New Yorker has to go to bed hungry.

PASS THE FRENCH FRIES

February 19, 2006

If Mayor Bloomberg still can’t figure out why he should keep his nose out of New Yorkers’ refrigerators, maybe the results of a huge new study will give him some clues.

Bloomberg — and his health czar, Tom Frieden — have been nagging groceries and restaurants and corporate cafeterias in the city to cut down on the selection of fat-heavy foods they offer.

But a federally sponsored study — an eight-year, 49,000-subject comparison of low-fat versus normal diets that cost nearly half a billion dollars — has found: no difference at all.

Not in terms of health…

Health nut mayor puts new focus on bad habits
New York’s Bloomberg going after high-calorie foods in eateries, cafeterias

Jan. 12, 2006

NEW YORK – When Mayor Michael Bloomberg sat down to lunch with children during a school visit a few years ago, he was disgusted by the soggy, greasy fries and other junk on their plates.

He pushed for a revamp of school menus and by the start of the next school year, fat-laden meals were being replaced by healthier versions. That same year, 2003, the city began handing out free nicotine patches and Bloomberg won his crusade to outlaw smoking in bars and restaurants.

Now the city is going after high-calorie foods in bodegas, restaurants and company cafeterias.

Experts say Bloomberg — a bit of a health nut himself — has targeted unhealthy lifestyles unlike any other administration before him.

“It’s more aggressive than we’ve ever seen in the past,” said Dr. Allan Rosenfield, dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “There’s a willingness to take on unpopular but important issues.”

More than 53 percent of New Yorkers are overweight or obese — lower than the ballooning national 65 percent, but far too high, according to Bloomberg and his health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden. Being overweight raises the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and heart disease, which is New York City’s worst killer.

Last summer, the health department launched a campaign against trans-fats. Often used by restaurants and in packaged foods, trans-fats are thought to cause cholesterol problems and increase the risk of heart disease.

After restaurant inspectors found that 30 percent of the city’s 30,000 eateries were using oils that contain trans-fats, the department began urging a citywide “oil change.” Officials sent letters to food service operators and started teaching workers about trans-fats along with their required food safety training.

The city plans another survey this spring to measure the results of the project.

Officials next want to tackle portion sizes.

Out of control
Towering pastrami sandwiches, bagels with gooey schmears of cream cheese and pizza slices that spill over paper plates may be the city’s culinary landmarks, but the health department says the Big Apple is out of control.

“Today probably the biggest hazards from what you eat are not food poisoning but the caloric load,” said Dr. Lynn Silver, an assistant health commissioner. So health officials are trying to teach restaurants how to make healthier meals.

Leaders of the state restaurant association — who opposed the smoking ban — have so far supported the health department’s dip into nutritional education, but are eyeing it cautiously.

“It’s one thing for them to recommend, it’s another if they start saying, ‘You must do this,”’ said Charles Hunt, who heads the association’s New York City office.

Concerned about his own health
With nutrition, Bloomberg has so far stopped short of measures as aggressive as the smoking ban. But his obsession with weight and eating should not be underestimated.

Bloomberg, who is 5-feet-8, keeps a close eye on his own waistline. In 2001, he was horrified when he saw an unflattering photograph of himself in the newspaper. Aides said he tacked the clipping next to his desk as inspiration to lose the weight, which he did.

The 63-year-old mayor runs for nearly an hour every day on a treadmill at his Upper East Side home. He limits unhealthy takeout lunches, eats a lot of salads and snacks on popcorn.

Bloomberg’s weaknesses are red wine, hot dogs and the occasional hamburger. If he overindulges, there’s a price to pay: He has a weight-loss wager with longtime friend Peter Grauer, the CEO of Bloomberg LP. They weigh in every six weeks, and whoever is over his goal weight — Bloomberg’s is 169 — must fork over cash to charity.

The mayor’s administration is also beginning a venture to change workplace nutrition. Officials are urging some of the city’s biggest employers, including Consolidated Edison and large hospitals, to shape up their cafeteria food and vending-machine snacks.

The health department is even cleaning up its own diet, recently banning things like doughnuts and soda from meetings.

Next week, the department is launching a drive to improve what’s on the shelves of local bodegas. These corner stores are often the chief source for groceries in many poor neighborhoods, and they often don’t stock healthy staples like low-fat milk, fruits and vegetables. The pilot program will push the sale of 1 percent milk at a handful of bodegas in Harlem, the South Bronx and Brooklyn.

City officials say the recent focus on health issues may be yielding encouraging results: In 2004, heart attack deaths dropped significantly. Frieden says the city’s anti-tobacco campaign may be one of several reasons for the improvement. Health officials say the number of smokers in New York City has fallen by nearly 200,000 since 2002.

Critics say the administration still hasn’t done enough for school nutrition and that many unhealthy items remain on the lunch line. Soda has been phased out, but it was replaced by high-sugar Snapple.

The sugar police

December 19, 2005

In an appalling extension of the nanny state, New York is slated to become the first city to monitor diabetics’ blood-sugar levels. It plans to register them like HIV or tuberculosis sufferers and nag them when their levels aren’t healthy enough. Drop the cupcake; here come the sugar police.

Sensible people will laugh at this, but New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, an appointee of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is dead serious about the Big Apple’s sweet tooth. He’s the man behind New York’s onerous smoking ban; he doesn’t shy from alleging “epidemics.” Since Mr. Frieden recently told the New York Sun that diabetes and obesity will be the signature issues of his second term, this begs a question: Will diabetes be the next big thing for public-health bureaucracies?

This much is for certain: For years, the public-health establishment has been comfortable making an “epidemic” out of conditions like diabetes and obesity, which — though prevalent and debilitating — are not communicable and can be combated with a few modifications to personal habits.

The American Diabetes Association is not standing athwart the gates, at least not yet. Last week it called Mr. Frieden’s ideas valuable, which comes as no surprise given the ADA’s occasional use of the “E” word in policy papers and official statements (and its obesity scaremongering as well.) It hedged, however, insisting that permission from sufferers would be necessary before entering people into a city diabetes database.

If the ADA holds fast on the permission issue, it will clash with Mr. Frieden and his cohorts: They are all too eager to coerce. Last week the health commissioner dismissed concerns about doctor-patient privilege. “We will ensure that the utmost care will be taken to keep people’s information protected,” he said.

We won’t hold our breath, however. This is a classic case of permanent government inventing a new mandate in which the permanent interest groups all too often acquiesce. Having all but conquered germ-born diseases like tuberculosis and cholera, a city bureaucracy now needs another reason to exist. It will need to raid people’s refrigerators and living rooms, but that is no matter, since the measure comes as a regulatory decision. At least for now, real voters have no say.

No one denies diabetes’ ill effects on Americans: There are nearly 21 million sufferers nationwide on whom one of every 10 health-care dollars is thought to be spent. But who put city bureaucrats in charge of peoples’ eating and exercise habits? The sugar police don’t want to answer that question. In reality they are trying to install themselves as regulators of citizens’ personal lives. The rest of us should oppose them.