Questão 70 - UECE 2ª Fase 1° Dia 2017/1

T E X T

 

1      Can public health officials force
2  Americans to break their soda habit?
3      The answer may come soon from the
4  University of California, San Francisco, a
5  health sciences center that has more than
6  24,000 employees on its sprawling campus.
7  Last year, U.C.S.F. removed sugar-sweetened
8  beverages from every store, food truck and
9  vending machine on its campus. Even
10  popular fast-food chains on the campus, like
11  Subway and Panda Express, have stopped
12  selling Sprite, Coca-Cola and their sugary
13  brethren at the university’s request.
14      The institution is believed to be one of
15  the largest employers to remove sugary
16  drinks from the workplace. With sugary sodas
17  now a rare sight on campus, the university
18  found that it had the perfect conditions to
19  study what happens when people who were
20  drinking large amounts of sugar during their
21  workday suddenly stop.
22      Researchers there have enrolled 214 of
23  the school’s employees into a rigorous study,
24  collecting blood samples to see if there have
25  been any major metabolic changes in the
26  people who lowered their soda intake. While
27  they expect to publish complete results soon,
28  early indicators are promising.
29      Since the policy went into effect a
30  year ago, the university says it has recorded a
31  significant drop in soft drink consumption
32  among its employees, particularly service
33  workers, who were the biggest consumers. A
34  university survey of 2,500 employees found
35  that some service workers and support staff
36  members had been drinking up to a liter of
37 soda at work and at home each day, or almost
38  three cans. Six months after the policy went
39  into effect, these workers had reduced their
40  consumption by about a quarter.
41      “We’re a public health institution, and
42  there’s something not right about us making
43  money off of products that we know are
44  making people sick,” said Laura Schmidt, a
45  professor at the medical school who
46  spearheaded the beverage initiative. “How
47  dare we profit off of a product that our own
48  doctors say causes metabolic disease?”
49      The university’s experiment comes at a
50  time of growing battles over policies aimed
51  at curbing soda consumption. On Tuesday,
52  three cities in Northern California and one in
53  Colorado will be voting on whether to tax soft
54  drinks. The cities of Berkeley and Philadelphia
55  have already approved taxes on sugary
56  beverages. One recent study found that the
57  Berkeley tax was working: In low-income
58  areas, sugary drink consumption fell and
59  water consumption rose after the tax went
60  60into effect. Last month, the World Health 

61  Organization urged countries around the world
62  to impose a tax on sugary drinks, presenting
63  research that showed just a 20 percent
64  increase in soda prices would result in a
65  proportionate reduction in their consumption.
66      The beverage industry has been fighting
67  back, spending millions on ad campaigns
68  against the proposed taxes in California and
69  Colorado, which it calls a regressive “grocery
70  tax” that hurts the poor. In September, the
71  industry filed a lawsuit against Philadelphia,
72  calling its soda tax illegal.
73      As the fights over soda taxes play out,
74  many hospitals and health organizations have
75  taken matters into their own hands, banning
76  sugary drinks from their own workplaces.
77  Nationwide, at least 30 medical centers have
78  restricted the sale of soda and full-calorie
79  sports drinks, including the Cleveland Clinic in
80  Ohio and the University of Michigan Health
81  System.
82      U.C.S.F.’s policy may be the most far-

83reaching. It applies not only to its medical
84  center, but the entire university, including the
85  aforementioned 24,000 employees and its
86  8,500 visitors and patients each year. Visitors
87  to the campus now will find only bottled
88  water, diet drinks, unsweetened teas, and in
89  some cases 100 percent fruit juice with no
90  added sugar.
91      Michael Flanders, an assistant specialist
92  in the medical center’s division of hematology
93  and oncology, said he had been consuming
94  “tons” of added sugar daily from San
95  Pellegrino Limonatas and other sugary drinks.
96  But when the policy went into effect and the
97  drinks disappeared, sparkling water became
98  his drink of choice.
99      “It took my taste buds a couple months
100  to adjust, but I’ve come to genuinely enjoy
101  black coffee and unflavored fizzy water,” he
102  said. “Soda and sugary coffee drinks now
103  seem overwhelmingly sweet.”
104      But while the university says it hopes its
105  policy will become a model for other large
106  employers to follow, the beverage industry
107  argues that the strategy is flawed. It points
108  out that obesity rates have been climbing
109  even as America’s soda intake has declined in
110  recent years. And it says that focusing blame
111  on soda alone, rather than calories from all
112  foods, is misguided.
113      But Ms. Schmidt said it doesn’t make
114  sense for doctors to urge patients to cut back
115  on sweetened beverages while a university
116  medical center continues to sell those same
117  drinks.
118      Getting the university to stop selling
119  sugary drinks was surprisingly easy, Ms.
120  Schmidt and her colleagues say. The school’s
121  chancellor, after some initial reluctance,
122  decided that the goal was important, and
123  many faculty members supported the idea.
124  The university’s beverage supplier then
125  agreed to stock the campus stores and 

126  cafeterias with mostly water and zero-calorie
127  drinks. One exception was made for 100
128  percent fruit juices, which have natural but
129  not added sugars.
130      The policy was announced last July and
131  phased in over a four-month period as the
132  university handed out pamphlets and other
133  educational materials to students and staff
134  members.
135      “We educated everyone and explained
136  to people how harmful sugar sweetened
137  beverages can be to health,” said Leeane
138  Jensen, the director of well-being at the
139  university. “People got it right away, and they
140  were all in support of it.”
141      Robert W. Jones, who owns two Subway
142  franchises on the campus, said that when the
143  school asked him to stop selling soda, he
144  worried that it would upset his customers. Mr.
145  Jones said that his beverage sales declined by
146  about 10 percent in the first two months after
147  the soda was removed, but that he recovered
148  most of the business through sales of diet
149  drinks and bottled water.
150      Whether the policy will have any
151  measurable impact on health remains to be
152  seen. Elissa Epel, the associate director of the
153  university’s Nutrition and Obesity Research
154  Center, said she and her colleagues want to
155  find out if employees who manage to reduce
156  their overall sugary drink intake saw any
157  impact on things like weight loss, liver health,
158  insulin resistance and telomeres, the stretches
159  of DNA that are linked to longevity.
160      One employee who is enrolled in the
161  study, Kristine Obiniana, an analyst at the
162  medical center, said she had been consuming
163  as many as three sugary drinks per day. Ms.
164  Obiniana said that when the policy first went
165  into effect last year, she found herself
166  bringing ginger ale, Dr. Pepper and Capri Sun
167  juices to work. Eventually, she stopped
168  bringing soda to work and started drinking
169  water, tea and zero-calorie flavored drinks
170  instead. She has lost five pounds and hopes to
171  lose at least 20 more.

The largest employer so far to stop the selling of sugary drinks at the workplace seems to be the