What better way to celebrate the day after Val entine's Day than discussing sugar? Chances are you've probably had a bit of it in the last 24 hours. It's sweet, addic tive and makes you feel pretty good. Sort of like alcohol or drugs, isn't it?
Yep.
Dr. Robert Lustig would agree with that "yep," even if you do not. The only addition he might have is that sugar is like a poison. Yep. A poison.
Lustig, a professor at University of California, San Francisco, is pushing for sugar to be regulated by none other than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) so schools would not serve delectable treats during school hours.
That's right; under Lustig's plan, the same peo ple who burn tons of confiscated marijuana from Chilean vessels and who take pictures of the guns obtained from a serial killer's closet will soon raid your cupboard to search for that container of Domino Sugar you just got from the Walmart, all while taking that cookie from your child's lunch plate.
What is Lustig's reasoning, I hear you asking in between your bites of doughnuts. In the latest is sue of Nature, a popular science journal where his peer-reviewed article can be found, Lustig con cludes that sugar is just as addictive and danger ous as alcohol or tobacco-related products, adding that it has characteristics in line with ethanol.
Lustig wants to fight the sweet trend by imple menting more taxes to control the consumption of sugary treats and artificially sweetened products. What is most scary is that Lustig isn't the first to think this sort of thing up. According to Helen Briggs, health editor for BBC News' website, France has already popped a tax on sodas to help curb the bulge.
Now, I am not someone who lobbies on obe sity's behalf by any means. It's not too positive when I see a bus full of students visiting Long wood with many who are obviously overweight. While I know that there are more causes to obesity than sugar, I can't help but think it surely plays a role.
What plays the biggest role isn't necessarily what's in the food, but what foods we select to consume. Part of it does come down to the parent, but part of it also comes to the child. You have to learn good eating habits just like anything else in life.
For instance, let us look at soda machines in schools. As said, one of Lustig's proposals is to eliminate sugar as much as possible from the public school sector when school hours are in ef fect. The schools remove the machines in order to teach children that soda is unhealthy. Fair. That's their prerogative.
But do the students really see that as what the school is doing? No. They are upset because soda at school is in the history books. To compensate, they'll take in more soda at home or at other places.
This type of thinking by school systems is rather disturbing since it erupts an emotion from chil dren who will learn that the way to change things is to simply take them away, rather than adapt. And life is all about adaptation, not removal.
I see this above example as just the same as the age-old alcohol debate. When the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 (a decision by states, not the federal government), do you really think people who were 18 stopped sipping on alcohol? Well, in public, maybe, but the ban on that prod uct made people seek it more since it was consid ered taboo.
The issue here is not so much sugar being un healthy because we all know that. If you drink a handle of alcohol, you will get drunk. If you eat a bag of sugar in a day, you'll have all kinds of problems — such as onset diabetes — and brag ging rights, of course.
The problem here, however, is proper nutrition and healthy eating habits. Taxing and regulation will not work. Fixing the food problem is the right thing to do.
Sugar is just part of the equation. Did Lustig forget about sodium, calories, trans fat and other food families that would surely put more of a scare on our heart than a dollop of sugar? With moderation, sugar is like nothing else, or at least nothing as dangerous as the above examples.
That spirit of moderation should remain with the governed, not the government. Let the Hill not tell us how much sugar we can have. We're not in times of ration here, folks. Just be smart and take care of yourself by eating healthy and exercising. Now, that's a sweet idea.
