In a previous post, I criticized coverage of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban the sale of sugared sodas larger than 16 ounces. None of the stories that I saw told me whether this was...
In a previous post, I criticized coverage of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban the sale of sugared sodas larger than 16 ounces. None of the stories that I saw told me whether this was...
In a previous post, I criticized coverage of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban the sale of sugared sodas larger than 16 ounces. None of the stories that I saw told me whether this was likely to work. Surely, I thought, somebody has done research on this; most coverage dealt with whether it was appropriate for the government to meddle with food choices.
This morning, The New York Times has a front-page story by Winnie Hu discussing Bloomberg's efforts to promote the plan. It makes a minor nod to research by asking Kelly Brownell, the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University and a prominent obesity researcher, what he thinks of the policy...
New York City Michael Bloomberg is all over the news this morning in the wake of a press conference yesterday at which he proposed a ban on large soft drinks, sugary fruit drinks and sweetened coffee, in an effort to help curb obesity. The proposed ban would cover any sugary drink larger than 16 ounces. (For those of you who guzzle diet sodas by the quart, there's no reason for concern. Diet drinks are excluded, as are milkshakes and those sickeningly sweet blue alcoholic concoctions with little umbrellas.)
Bloomberg described the ban as an example of "doing something" about the nationwide obesity problem, not merely wringing hands.
The New York City Beverage Association raised the question that I'd like to consider here. Protesting the...
This Sunday's New York Times Magazine features an unusual story by Gary Taubes, whom some of you might remember as the author of the controversial story in the Times in 2002 touting the virtues of a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.
That story appeared under the headling, "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" The headline on the web version of this Sunday's story is equally direct: "Is Sugar Toxic?" (The...
I saw a couple of teasers on the web, heard a few seconds of a report on the radio, and over the past day or so, this is what I gleaned: Fructose is a particularly high-energy fuel for the growth of cancer cells.
When I dug into the coverage, what I found was quite different.
Here was David W. Freeman in the health blog on CBSnews.com:
Afraid of fructose? You may have good reason to be, as an alarming new study shows that the popular sweetener can fuel the growth of cancer.
We've heard plenty in recent years about high-fructose corn syrup being a special threat for...