By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
A recent study by Columbia University researchers may present a problem for civil libertarians basking in the defeat of Mayor Bloomberg’s Big Gulp ban. As many of us know, the NYC mayor proposed and then passed a health rule prohibiting restaurants, mobile food carts, delis and concessions at movie theaters, stadiums and arenas from selling sugary drinks in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces. The New York State appellate division upheld Judge Milton Tingling’s ruling that Bloomberg “eviscerated” the separation of powers doctrine by making an end run around the City Council and presenting the measure to the NYC Board of Health. The city plans to appeal but it is now armed with an important study concerning the effects of sugar on children.
The new study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, links sugar consumption with aggressive, and violent behavior in children as young as 5 years old. Researchers followed 3000 mother-child pairs from 20 large U.S. cities. from birth to age 5 years. The mother’s were asked to self-report their child’s consumption of soda and then to answer a series of behavioral questions. The results were stunning. Children who consumed as little as four servings of sugary soft drinks per day were twice as likely to engage in “aggressive violent behaviors – such as destroying other people’s belongings, starting physical fights and verbally attacking other children. ” In addition, the sugar dosed kids had trouble concentrating and became more socially withdrawn than kids who didn’t imbibe. But even one serving of soda triggered behavioral problems in the young children:
“There was a dose response,” said Shakira Suglia, study author and associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. “With every increase in soda consumption, we saw an increase in behavior problems. It was significant for kids who consumed as few as one serving of soda per day.”
The researchers pointed out that Americans buy more soda per capita than any other people in the world. They also said that other contributing factors like parenting styles, exposure to violent programming, hard candy consumption, and socio-economic factors were controlled yet the same correlation persisted raising the specter of “Sugar Rage” in young children. The study does have drawbacks since researchers relied on parents to self-report and couldn’t say precisely the size of the dose or the type of soda offered, but the deleterious effects of sugar and sugar substitutes are well-known in the medical community especially when it comes to kid consumers.
“Despite the multitude of studies exposing the negative effects of soda consumption, Americans continue to buy and drink more soda than those in any other country,” said Marlo Mittler, registered dietician from Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, and not affiliated with the study. “In an effort to reduce the effects on a child’s possible negative behavior, it is suggested to eliminate or avoid any soda consumption.”
If the studies are true and sugar represents a clear hazard to children’s health and behavior should it be treated like other child unfriendly substances like alcohol and tobacco? State supreme courts around the nation and the United States Supreme Court (Lorillard v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525 (2001)) have universally held that these drugs may be excluded from purchases by those under age 18 for health and safety reasons. In Lorillard, the tobacco company didn’t even contest that the state had an important interest in preserving the health of minors by restricting sales of tobacco products.
What then of the Bloomberg ban on not the sugar but the method of delivery of the sugar? Shouldn’t the state have the right to restrict the amount of consumption of a known hazardous substance to children? Isn’t this state prerogative especially necessary when the harm isn’t just limited to the youthful consumer but to children in his immediate vicinity who might be harmed? And if not, under what basis can we restrict the sale of tobacco and alcohol or any other harmful substance to minors? Does our freedom to consume hold sway over even children’s health and well-being of those they may come into contact with?
Interesting questions that the courts in New York will have to answer if the researchers at Columbia have stumbled onto something that will make the Tobacco Wars against Big Tobacco look like a pillow fight.
Read the study here.
Source: CNN; Journal Pediatrics
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Bob,
I’m pretty sure you, I or both of us have explained that to Bron more than once. Also the note “it’s kind of comical that “classical liberalism” is actually quite conservative.” I think that’s in part why Bron has expressed surprise whenever I’ve written columns on philosophy. It’s extremism along any axis of the political spectrum that fails. Extremism by its nature offers silver bullet/one size fits all solutions and reality is not amenable to such solutions. That’s binary thinking and the world is fuzzy and analog. People with a higher functioning anterior cingulate cortex know this whether they fall on the liberal or conservative side of that axis. Therein lies the problem with the GOP and the LP; they have become dominated by extremists. The same can be said of the DNC too albeit they are being driving by neoliberals instead of neoconservatives. And all three are being driven by amoral unprincipled fascists/corporatists funding their campaigns and writing legislation that the lobbied for cash often pass without so much as reading the damn bill. No one who is a traditional conservative (such as our sadly departed FFLEO) or a classical liberal (such as myself and others posting here) are being properly represented by any American political party at this time. A+ for effort though.
“But it will, that is the only possible outcome. National health care [socialized medicine] will be administered by people who think they know what is in our best interest. Health care availability will be used like a club.”
Bron,
The same argument holds. You cannot compel citizens to lead virtuous and healthy lives; that entails exercising a property interest in the individual and is tyranny per se.
Participation in a national health care plan is not consent to be treated as “property of” the United States.
Will you have to remind the self-deluded liberals, i.e. convincing themselves and others that all power and rights flow from the government to the people, of the the proper order of operations in our republic?
Sure.
But what else is new?
BTW, it’s kind of comical that “classical liberalism” is actually quite conservative.
They apparently lost their way.
Considering that violence among kids (and adults) has been decreasing in this country since the 90’s, it’s strange to associate violent behavior with a substance that is being increasingly used.
Also, how do the researchers know there was a “dose response,” when the dose is unknown? What is the mechanism for these sudden changes in behavior?
Is it possible that reactions to sugar vary among people? How many soda drinking kids who don’t have behavior problems does it take to suggest that sugar isn’t a universal poison?
Bob Esq:
But it will, that is the only possible outcome. National health care [socialized medicine] will be administered by people who think they know what is in our best interest. Health care availability will be used like a club.
So I am not so sure you are standing on firm ground in your chatisement of Mark.
Mike Spindell:
Of course. That is what we did as well in our house. Setting a good example is the best way to raise children. We dont own them.
The German parent comment was a joke.
Bron,
I’m in favor of national health care that doesn’t stamp on federalism.
Furthermore, national health care doesn’t compel anyone to be healthy.
Oxa,
I checked the spam filter and moderation queue and you had no comment in them. Sometimes WordPress will randomly eat a comment. Try again.
Why are you censoring my comment?
Mike,
I agree. My daughter is thirty-three–and still doesn’t drink soda. I know she won’t give it to my granddaughter. She has never fed Julia prepared baby food from a jar either.
Tony C:
I would think you are correct about parents. But adults do get a sugar buzz, an increase in energy, so I would expect the same happens to children. But since a 5 year old hasnt yet learned self control they act out. A stern parent probably counteracts the outburst.
So what you are saying is that we all need to be good German parents? 🙂
“So what you are saying is that we all need to be good German parents?”
Bron,
None of my three grandchildren drink sodas. Perhaps the fact that when my children were growing up we didn’t allow soda in our house and taught them to drink healthier alternatives. A parent can serve as a role model for their children and non-coercively set them on the right path.
Yet, alcohol and tobacco ARE legal for adults to consume, and Bloomberg justified his rule on adult obesity.
If sufficient, replicated, double-blind scientific study proves that sugar is significantly more detrimental to the health of children than other foods children are allowed to purchase and consume (like potato chips or corn chips or plain white bread or brown beans or apples) then perhaps some legal controls in regard to underage consumption are in order.
But I doubt such studies would come to anything; as the study quoted indicated, there are insufficient controls on reporting to really prove anything; it is just a suggestive correlation. The majority of such suggestive correlations do not pan out, or turn out to be far more complicated; for example the parents that allow their children unlimited soda per day may also lack the personality, willpower or mental tools needed to discipline their children at all, thus accounting for their children’s aggressiveness.
Perhaps the “dose response” is not related to soda at all: Perhaps soda-permissiveness is a proxy measure for permissiveness in general and a lack of child discipline that results in unpunished aggressiveness. When parents lack the will to punish children for bad behavior, bad behavior is essentially rewarded and reinforced as a tactic for getting their way.
Certainly it seems parents that report zero sodas per day have a firmer than average control of their children, and we should expect that control probably encompasses much more than their dietary intake, and we can probably infer a significant level of control over their behavior as well.
If the issue is not “sugar” but “discipline,” should we start to legislate how parents discipline their children as well? I think that would obviously be a totalitarian step too far.
Perhaps Herr Bloomberg would care to take his crypto-fascist nanny state a step further and place the children on food rations to ensure they will never have the energy required to act out and misbehave as children are wont to do.
Nanny state..ll
Bob Esq:
Arent you for single payer health care [socialized medicine]? If so how do you have the right to say that to Mespo?
Blouise,
I meant every word; especially the paraphrasing of OS regarding Mark’s need for control regarding the role of government in our lives. Mark looks upon citizens not as free moral actors but as chattels to be directed and arranged by government policy.
I solve the sugary drink problem with a gallon of lemonade a day. (I work outside) I use lemon juice & ‘Stevia In The Raw’ from Wal-Mart. It contains dextrose too but the main sweetener is stevia, that green leaf from South America. Per the labeling its zero calories with a very low glycemic index. Water is okay, but you don’t drink enough. A total libertarian solution is tricky, but in areas like New York where regulation is most likely overboard anyway, a political solution would be to offer less regulation, free permits, etc to come up with something more healthy. If soft drinks are taxed, untax the healthy alternative. Of course, you would need good adjudication of what is healthy, natural practitioners having a better idea than doctors & hospitals.
Bob esq.
Full moon is approaching. They say that you can feel the effects of the full moon 3 days before and 3 days after……………
p s … I know you were kidding … sort of
Bob,
Come on … Mark is not an ignorant slut for suggesting that sugar in large amounts is bad for young/growing bodies.
Nor is he wrong for wondering if the “state” should play a role in getting the word out.
Where he goes amiss is in thinking that the state can effectively regulate the behavior of adults vis-a-vis their children.
However, thanks to my 5 year old grandchild, I am in touch with many young parents. Guess what the drink of choice is now the only one offered at snack time in pre-school and at all the birthday parties we have attended this year? Water. That’s it … just water.
Mike,
It’s kind of an obscure reference, but Bob was using an old Dan Ackroyd joke. Remember “Point/Counterpoint” on the original SNL Weekend Update?
Gene,
I get it but Bob is simply not the humorist he thinks he is and he is certainly not immune from over the top rhetoric.