New York is probably not the first place you think of when it comes to healthy living. It might be the first place you think of when it comes to pizza, bagels with a shmear, restaurants that are open twenty-four hours a day, street vendors selling hot dogs, and deli sandwiches bigger than your head, but that pretty much proves my point. California generally holds the reputation as the place where the “granola loving health freaks” live, but as is the case with most stereotypes California and New York are actually pretty similar when it comes to the percentage of the population that is considered obese. In 2008 approximately 23.1% of the population of California residents fell under the obese classification, while 23.5% of New Yorkers were in the same category. For those of you that are curious, Colorado actually came in as the leanest state with “only” 18% of their population falling into an obese weight range.
In spite of their reputation as being lovers of unhealthy foods (or, perhaps, because of it) the lawmakers in New York have taken it upon themselves to wage a war against obesity, and their primary targets seem to be soda and restaurant food. In 2008 the Governor of New York proposed a 15% sales tax on sugary drinks, and a few months later the New York City health commissioner made the case for the same kind of tax to be imposed on a federal level. New York also ordered all chain restaurants to begin posting calorie counts on their menus and banned the use of trans fats in food production.