While those fighting to reduce gun deaths in the U.S. have a long hard struggle still ahead of them, it appears that another scourge of our country, the epidemic in obesity, shows signs of abating. To speak only of the fight against Big Soda, “since the mid-1990s, sales of full-calorie soft drinks in the United States have plunged by more than 25 %. The numbers of diet sodas are no better, with sales down almost 20% in the past five years—a likely reflection of worries about artificial sweeteners. Bottled water is expected to surpass sweetened soda as the country’s number one packaged beverage by 2017. Public health surveys also indicate that obesity rates in the U.S., after years of rising relentlessly, lately have plateaued among adults and school-age children and have even begun to fall in younger children.”
Natalie Angier, “The Bear’s Best Friend,” book review of Marion Nestle, Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning), in The New York Review of Books, May 12, 2016, p. 56.
ROBERT BOWIE 