Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
by Marion Nestle
Dec
18
2008
More and more on the soda tax
Nicholas Kristof writes about it in the New York Times today. As for me, I did 7 radio interviews on Fox News this morning, including two in Georgia, home of Coca-Cola. The Fox News folks are shocked, shocked: Where’s personal responsibility? Where’s parental responsibility?
OK, but what about liquid candy? And marketing to kids? And all the research linking frequent consumption of soft drinks to childhood obesity?
OK. I’m not crazy about regressive taxes, and I think the distinction between sugary soft drinks and sugary juice drinks doesn’t make much sense, but I’m interested to see how this idea works. Let’s call it an interesting experiment and hope that someone is doing the research.
