Hey, how about a war on carbonated soft drinks? You know, for, like, the children?

Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the insistence of the legislature, bravely terminated the sale of sodas in California’s schools.

Never mind that studies like this one find no meaningful correlation between soda consumption and childhood obesity.

Here’s another one, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, hot off the press. The researchers conclude:

Of all children, 15.3% attended schools where soft drinks were sold. These children drank an average of 4.0 cans of soda pop per week compared with 3.6 cans drunk by children attending schools without such sales. Children from schools with and without sales of soft drinks consumed an average of 33.5 and 32.5 g of sucrose per day respectively. Availability of soft drinks at schools was not associated with significantly increased risks of overweight.

Oh, good. The Spurlock crowd had me worried there for a second. Everyone can calm down now.

(Nanny, shouting in the background: “Alarming! Unacceptable! Think of the children!”)

How bad is a gram of sucrose? The Center for Consumer Freedom points out that it amounts to four calories a day, or the equivalent of two peanuts.

(Nanny: “Outrageous! More laws! Down with Big Sugar!”)

But, if California politicians are hellbent on teaching those damn sugarpushers a lesson, why did the bill also ban diet sodas from schools — drinks that don’t contain a single calorie?

(Nanny: “Coca-Cola is evil! Let’s pass a new law! Free V-8 juice for kids! And tofu! More tofu!”)

And so it goes.

[cross-posted at Nobody's Business, where commenters deserve much non-calorie sweetness]

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 at 10:20 am by Rogier van Bakel and is filed under Nanny State, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.