{"id":323999,"date":"2010-02-14T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerfreedom.com:\/\/54a3301c7c003728ecb7c623dfea6c7c"},"modified":"2010-02-14T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T00:00:00","slug":"new-york-times-cites-center-for-consumer-freedom-on-soda-tax-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/323999","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Cites Center for Consumer Freedom on Soda Tax Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a February 12 <i>New York Times<\/i> article, food writer Mark Bittman <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/14\/weekinreview\/14bittman.html\">cites our Senior Research Analyst<\/a> on the foolishness of soda taxes in America&rsquo;s obesity battles. Predictably, &ldquo;Twinkie Tax&rdquo; proponent <a href=\"http:\/\/activistcash.com\/biography.cfm\/b\/1289-kelly-brownell\">Kelly Brownell<\/a> argues that &ldquo;healthy food is too expensive and unhealthy food is too cheap.&rdquo; A soda tax, claims Brownell, will discourage excessive consumption and help reduce obesity. Kudos to the <i>Times <\/i>for giving us a crack at busting Brownell&rsquo;s mythology.<\/p>\n<p>Calories are calories, we told Bittman, no matter where they come from:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Soda has calories, and food with calories causes people to put on weight when consumed in excess&hellip;But there is no unique link between soda and obesity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Leaving aside the argument over governments&rsquo; right to dictate personal choices, taxing sodas is not likely to reduce obesity. The main driver of high obesity rates is a <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerfreedom.com\/..\/..\/downloads\/pro\/docs\/060307_sodaObesity.pdf\">lack of physical activity<\/a>. As long as people don&rsquo;t get enough exercise, excess calories &ndash; no matter what the source &ndash; will keep Americans putting on extra pounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a February 12 New York Times article, food writer Mark Bittman cites our Senior Research Analyst on the foolishness of soda taxes in America&rsquo;s obesity battles. Predictably, &ldquo;Twinkie Tax&rdquo; proponent Kelly Brownell argues that &ldquo;healthy food is too expensive and unhealthy food is too cheap.&rdquo; A soda tax, claims Brownell, will discourage excessive consumption [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}