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New Yorkers are getting fatter and fatter — even as fewer are drinking soft drinks, according to the city’s own data.
From 2008 to 2010, the number of New Yorkers who reported enjoying one or more sugary drinks per day declined 2.7 percent — to 59 percent from 62.7 percent, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says.
Yet the number of obese New Yorkers continued its long upward trend, to 23.2 percent of the population in 2010 — a jump of more than 5 percentage points over the past decade.
Big Apple residents still aren’t as fat as other Americans. The national obesity rate in 2010 was 35.7 percent. That means New Yorkers are about one-third less likely to be fat than other Americans.
But despite our lower-than-average obesity rates and our declining use of sugary drinks, health experts say we still gulp down way too much sweet stuff — and that Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to ban giant-size sugary drinks could be a good idea.
“Sugar-sweetened beverages contribute to obesity potentially more than any other foods or beverages. There is a scientific validity to targeting them,” said Brian Elbel, a health-policy expert at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Obesity is expensive — nationwide, treating obesity-related illnesses costs doctors and hospitals around $150 billion a year.
It also has a great human cost. Doctors say they see overweight children as young as 6 with adult diabetes and overweight 19-year-olds suffering the health woes of people who are 60.
“In this country in the past 10 years, the number of adolescents with diabetes and pre-diabetes has gone from 9 percent to 23 percent,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity expert at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
David Zinczenko, editor of Men’s Health magazine and author of “Eat This, Not That!,” complained that Bloomberg’s plan gives sugary juices a pass.
“A 24-ounce bottle of Welch’s grape juice is 420 calories and 108 grams of sugar — so the juice has more calories and sugar than the soda,” said Zinczenko.
“And diet soda is deemed safe,” he said.