How Bad is Fructose
1. Taxing soft drinks and fast foods will supposedly result in a proportionate decrease in their consumption, which will obviously influence obesity and diabetes issues. The second benefit is a solid increase in nationwide income. Possible drawbacks are decrease of workplaces and wages in soft beverages and fast foods industries, and governmental influence on citizens’ preferences and choices.
2. American nation is suffering from a growing obesity trend. According to Bittman, the percentage of obese adults has more than doubled over the last 30 years; the percentage of obese children has tripled, and health-related obesity costs are estimated to reach $344 billion by 2018. Obesity-projected health issues are as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco inhibited damage. Thus, government should implement active educational and economic leverage policies to cope with this problem.
3. Facts and numbers in both “Sweet Problem” and Corn Refiners’ article are supposedly accurate, however, corn syrup producers clearly have a financial conflict of interests when highlighting only the positive sides of their products. Princeton University research appears to have more credibility despite criticism from “Scicurious” (which at times seems far-fetched) as they have conducted detailed and thorough examination.
4. Introduction of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) seems to have added to the obesity levels in Americans, but this is just one of many factors contributing to this issue. As Bittman stated, the average American consumes 44.7 gallons of soft drinks annually, not including approximately 17 gallons of noncarbonated sweetened beverages. Also Americans progressively increase consumption of animal origin food, as well as processed food. Moreover, not only nutritional aspects should be considered, as the nation tends to spend less time outdoors, specifically, 87% of their lives indoors and 7% in the cars (SnowBrains). This could be the main reason of increasing obesity, whereas overall amount of consumed calories has slightly increased over the decades.
Availability of food variety, numerous ways of fast delivery, and overloading amount of fast food marketing messages and techniques all contribute to Americans’ nutrition preferences and health problems. HFCS consumption definitely participates in adding around-the-waist fat layers, but hypothesis stated by Princeton researchers that introduction of this product is a crucial factor in obesity epidemic seems a little far-fetched.
5. Banning larger than 16 oz soda seems like barely effective measure as people would just buy more units of their preferred product.
Works Cited
Bittman, Mark. "Tax Soda, Subsidize Vegetables". Nytimes.Com, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24bittman.html?_r=0.
“Brain Post: How Much Time Does the Average American Spend Outdoors?”. SnowBrains, …
