France bans unlimited sugary drinks to combat obesity News
France bans unlimited sugary drinks to combat obesity

[JURIST] France published a decree [text, in French] on Thursday which, as of Friday, prohibits businesses from offering unlimited soft drinks. The decree, approved in 2015 by the French Parliament [official website, in French] in an effort to reduce the nation’s obesity, bans the serving of unlimited beverages with added sugars or sweeteners for free or at a fixed price. While France already has a tax on soft drinks [Telegraph report], the new law is expected to further reduce health risks among adults and youth by meeting the standards of the World Health Organization. Recent studies [text, PDF] have revealed that about half of French adults are overweight and 15.3 percent of adults qualify as obese. While France’s obesity rate may be steadily rising, the nation still lies under the EU average obesity rate of 15.9 percent.

Other areas and organizations have linked sugary drinks and the obesity epidemic. In June 2014 New York’s highest court ruled [JURIST report] that the New York City Board of Health exceeded its power as a regulatory authority by banning the serving of large portions of sugary drinks. In May that same year the Appropriations Committee of the California State Senate [official websites] passed [JURIST report] a measure requiring distributors of bottled or canned sugary drinks to fix warning labels to the beverage container. In May of of last year, a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] rejected [JURIST report] an attempt to block a San Francisco law that requires health warning labels on ads for sugary drinks.

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