I have a thing about reading
signs. Lately, I’ve noticed the stickers
on the soft drink fridges near the checkouts in stores. They say something like “Balance what you
eat, drink, and do.”
On one hand, this is
no-brainer good advice. Yes, we need to
maintain a calorie balance between what we take in and what we put out, unless
we are trying to gain or lose weight, in which case we want to skew the numbers
one way or the other.
On the other hand, this
is a disingenuous technique on the part of the manufacturers of junk food. They are trying to sell us on the idea that
we can balance out the junk food on a regular basis. Culturally, we have pretty much proved we can’t. Roughly two thirds of us are overweight. We are not, in general, doing a good job of
balancing out those calories and sugary drinks are one of the main culprits in
our caloric excesses.
I am definitely not
saying that we should never ever again slurp a soda. Just that on “balance,” we need to ignore
sneaky messages that want us to drink more Coke and less water.
