Obesity Levels Go Up Even As Soda Sales Drop

Soda Consumption Has Been Declining for 5-Yearss

Rob Port  •  August 4, 2010

It’s almost like obesity doesn’t really have anything to do with soft drinks or something.

For a while now politicians, particularly Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and First Lady Michelle Obama, have been leading a charge against the soda industry claiming that the industry is responsible, at least in part, for the “obesity epidemic.” That “epidemic” really just being the latest “crisis” they don’t want to let go to waste when it can be used to justify more taxes and regulations.

There’s a problem though. While obesity levels are on the rise…

The U.S. is losing the battle of the bulge, and Mississippi is the state reporting the largest percentage of fat people.

The number of states with an adult obesity rate of 30 percent or more has tripled, to nine, since 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report today. Mississippi had the highest rate, 34 percent. About 75 million Americans are considered obese, the Atlanta-based CDC said.

Being fat is costing Americans as much as $150 billion a year from ills such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, as obese people carry almost $1,500 more in yearly medical expenses, the CDC said in the report. The Obama administration and public-health officials have made fighting flab a priority, organizing campaigns to get people to eat less, consume more fruits and vegetables, and get more physical activity.

…soda consumption is actually declining and has been for five years now.

Sales of carbonated soft drinks in the U.S. fell for the fifth year in a row last year, although the pace of decline has slowed from 2008, according to a report from industry trademagazine Beverage Digest.

Maybe, just maybe, Americans are fat not because of any one specific industry but rather because they make poor diet and exercise decisions. Specifically, that they eat too much and exercise too little.

And maybe that really isn’t any of the government’s business. After all, doesn’t living in a free country mean being free to have an unhealthy diet and skip exercising if we want? Granted, those aren’t good decisions, but since when did freedom only mean the freedom to make what the government defines as good decisions?

But, according to the Obama administration, Americans “do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” And according to Michelle Obama, “dessert is not a right.”