Grab Your Candy Bars and Run! Health Experts Take Aim at Sugar

on February 2, 2012 at 6:39 PM

chocolate bar First they came for your trans fats. (Gross.) Then they came for your soda. (Whatever, water's cheaper anyway.) But now a group of scientists has a food ingredient in its sights that will really hit a lot of us where it counts: sugar.

Researchers at University of California, San Francisco, say sugar's damage goes way beyond making us fat through empty calories -- that it's actually toxic, leading to metabolic changes that can cause diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other deadly diseases. Eating sugar to excess, they say, is like drinking to excess. Consequently, they suggest, public health policy should be reshaped to control sugar the way it does alcohol and tobacco: possibly by boosting sales taxes on sugary products, controlling access to them, and changing licensing requirements on vending machines.

The researchers say they're not advocating a major intrusion into our lives – "We’re not talking prohibition," one said – but they do want to make it harder for people to eat sugary snacks.

You know what I say to that?

Get your hot little mitts off my mid-afternoon candy-bar break, people! No, seriously, I'm sure these worthy, learned scientists are perfectly right. All those cookies and candies and cupcakes we're consuming might just kill us someday. Bite by bite, they are probably shuttling us swiftly toward our doom. But at least we will have lived a sweet life!

Honestly, I'm not a big one for sugary drinks, but a life without chocolate, I believe, would barely be a life worth living. Can't we just all agree only to eat sweets and sugary snacks in moderation? Can't we trust ourselves to make those decisions for ourselves? Do we really need someone to levy an extra tax on our candy bars and cookies to get us to make healthy choices? (Soda, I could see …) And what about birthday cakes, will we start taxing those?

Maybe these scientists are right and we really do need the government to take action to nudge us toward making healthier choices. But I find it sort of depressing. Sigh.

Hmmm ... Is it time for that candy-bar pick-me-up, yet?

What do you think of the idea of battling sugar as a public health hazard?

Image via peter pearson/Flickr

About the author Amy Reiter

is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband/work spouse, two kids, and very demanding laptop computer.

Filed Under: bad habits, eating habits, eating healthy

Comments (15)

MommyOfOne2710

on Feb 2, 2012 at 7:04 PM

I think the government needs to quit making choices for us.

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on Feb 2, 2012 at 7:07 PM

I believe that the government should have a weekly television show in which the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, or even the first lady come on a talk about issues that are important to the lives and health of the citizens of the United States. This sugar is poison for your body and everyone should know it.

brandspanknnew

on Feb 2, 2012 at 7:21 PM

They, and I don't care HOW educated they are, have got to be the dumbest people I have ever heard of. You know what is more dangerous than my cupcake and chocolate cakes? MCDONALDS. I don't see any one jumping to put regulations/laws and restrictions on this crap company that keeps shoving disgusting things down our throat. If they can eat their horribly disgusting burgers full of everything we are not MEANT to digest, then you can let me have my sweets.

on Feb 2, 2012 at 7:46 PM

I don't need anyone to tell me how to eat. One thing we don't focus on is it not just people eating better, which is a big part, but we need to be more proactive on BEING ACTIVE. I am a big girl, I enjoy my food, but I stay active to keep myself healthy. I exercise, I eat a lot. I am overweight a bit, but I keep my vitals and my health in check. My doctor has never given me a bad bill of health because of my weight.

Melissa042807

on Feb 2, 2012 at 7:58 PM

Well, I do believe that the American diet is way too high in sugar, but I DON'T believe the government stepping in and making regulations is is going to make a difference. We can't make choices for other people. It just doesn't work.

babybluejess12

on Feb 2, 2012 at 8:37 PM

San Francisco why?

the4mutts

on Feb 2, 2012 at 8:53 PM

NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS!! We are adults. We can slowly kill ourselves any way we please.
Educate kids in schools, send home flyers to parents. Whatever. Make sure parents aren't letting their innocent children become dangerously overweight.
But if I want a candy, by crikey, I should have it if I pay for it!

Robcat21

on Feb 2, 2012 at 9:01 PM

I guess the government and the so called scientist (sound like they have an agenda to me) never heard of low blood sugar or gasp, hypoglycemia.

Government needs to stay out of our lives. It is my right as an American to choose what I want to eat and how much. Where does the government mandates end? Americans watch too much television. Vouchers will be issued or televisions rounded up. Americans eat too much red meat, Americans look at too much porn, the possibilities are endless. If people are treated like they cannot make mature decisions, they won't. I, for one, am not ready to embrace the nanny state. I am capable to make my own eating decisions and to teach my children how to make good eating choices for themselves.

Nonmember comment from June

on Feb 2, 2012 at 9:53 PM

You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of greedy, fat, diabetes type 2, heart disease, high-cholesterol having government assisted patients draining our resources with their health issues. I work for a major insurance company, and those with private coverage need to be yelled at like small children too. Billions are spent every year on health care for diseases and conditions that could be prevented by better nutrition and exercise. If you people don't want others to mandate what you put in your bodies, USE SELF CONTROL! And try listening to the folks who spend their lives researching ways to improve YOUR lives. Scientists contribute more to society than any of you could in three lifetimes.

Nonmember comment from CarolT

on Feb 2, 2012 at 11:23 PM

Lustig and all of his ilk are charlatans and criminals who deliberately commit scientific fraud. They use studies that ignore the role of infection, in order to falsely scapegoat other peoples' lifestyles, and inflict their own on everyone. They conspire to keep the public ignorant of even the most elementary facts, such as that the death rates from heart disease have steadily declined ever since the 1960s, in order to deceive the public that there's a public health crisis, and that submitting to their quackery is the remedy. http://www.smokershistory.com/fastfood.htm http://www.smokershistory.com/percent.htm Their fanatical, cult-like ideology is founded on the pseudo-science of the Third Reich. The difference is that the Nazis could hide behind the excuse of ignorance, while these criminals CANNOT! They get their funding from the government. For the government to commit fraud to deprive us of our liberties is automatically a violation of our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws, just as much as if it purposely threw innocent people in prison. And for the government to spread lies about phony health dangers is terrorism, no different from calling in phony bomb threats.