Will a ban on bottled water lead to bad beverage choices?
The Australian town Bundanoon has banned the sale of bottled water. Instead stores will install filtered drinking fountains and sell refillable bottles. Critics are already blowing this out of proportion, claiming that without bottled water on the shelves, thirsty consumers will buy unhealthier, sugary bottled sodas and juices. Hmmm…did I mention that water fountains are being installed.
Drinking soda instead of water can be a problem if it’s done over and over again, but not too long ago, bottled water wasn’t sold in stores the way it is now. People somehow coped, and I doubt they did so by guzzling caloric sodas all day long, because people were a lot thinner back then. The presence of bottled water everywhere hasn’t done much to control our waistline in America, that’s for sure. As a matter of fact, while bottled water sales rose through the 2000s, so too have obesity and diabetes rates. The rise in obesity and diabetes has been linked to the consumption of too much sugar-sweetned soda.
The International Bottled Water Association will tell you that Americans are drinking less soda today and that is true, but the consumption of sugary beverages continues to rise due to the popularity of non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverage like teas, juices and sports drinks.
On the whole, bottled water has not improved the drinking habits or health of Americans. And, if bottled water were to disappear from U.S. cities, I’m quite confident that water fountains would return, and people would figure out how to refill a bottle if they needed water to go.
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