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How Michael Bloomberg’s War On Fat People Will Affect Your In-Stadium Experience, Regardless Of Where You Live

Something you need to know about this before we dive in: it’s a good plan. It will provide moments of inconvenience, yes, and it kind of feels like our prickly, celibate nanny (in this case, Michael Bloomberg) isn’t letting us eat candy after dinner. But, overall, this is necessary.

Because we are getting really, really fat.

New York City’s honorable mayor wants to ban the mammoth-ounced soft drinks served at movie theaters, delis, fast-food restaurants, and, yes, sports stadiums. The thinking is that prohibiting the sale of industrial-size tubs of high fructose corn syrup will curb the growing fatness of New Yorkers (which is pretty sound thinking). Now, if you’ll bear with me a moment, I can explain the implications to you if you live in, say, Minnesota, and enjoy giant chalices of RC Cola at Twins games.

The ban could take effect as soon as March 2013, and would work as follows: anything larger than 16 ounces (the size of a medium coffee, smaller than your average soda bottle) would be prohibited. There’s a nifty chart to the left which provides a visual, via the Times and the NYC Health Department.

And, before we go on, an important note:

It doesn’t apply to beer.

So, yes, you will still be able to get a buzz at Giants Yankee Stadium.* (The ban also doesn’t apply to diet soft drinks, fruit juices, or dairy-based drinks like milkshakes, and doesn’t carry over to grocery stores. If you want 64 fluid ounces of BUZZ COLA, you can still go to Safeway.)

Now, here’s how it affects you if you don’t live in New York: remember when you could smoke wherever you wanted? Well, what happened was, smoking was banned in indoor public places in big cities (like New York), and then started getting banned across the country. The movement kept growing, got some media backing (those insanely graphic anti-smoking ads starring throatless folks) and pretty soon, you couldn’t smoke anywhere where there were other people (unless you were in a private residence). Bloomberg, actually, is one of the main reasons that 27 states now ban smoking in all general public places. Again, not the worst thing in the world, but the immediate effect was one of inconvenience for your smokier friends.

Now, the same thing will happen to your in-stadium consumption of Big Gulp-sized sodas: it will be restricted at first, then slowly phased out. You will most likely forget about the ban, until you walk up to the concession stand and say “I WOULD LIKE FIVE GALLONS OF YOUR FINEST SOFT DRINK, SIR,” and get denied. It will be momentarily inconvenient, yes. But the endgame here is an America that has less diabetes.

[h/t The New York Times]

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*A commenter points out that Giants Stadium (well, now MetLife Stadium) isn’t actually in New York anyway. Noted. You totally knew what we meant, though.