Bravo, Starbucks!

by Becca Krukowski

According to a press release from Starbucks last week, the company is switching from whole milk to reduced fat (2%) milk in all of their espresso-based drinks.  Thus, 2% milk will be the new standard, and if you oppose this, you will have to request that your drink be made with whole milk. This is the type of change that makes it easier for people to reduce their caloric intake because it establishes a healthy “default”.  What a great step in the right direction!

Starbucks indicated they decided to make this change based on the prevalence of their customers’ requests for reduced fat milk.  When they tested this change in select markets, the response from customers was positive.  So, maybe there is more support than previously thought for healthy changes in our food and physical activity environment? What other requests could we make as consumers/employees that would support healthy behavior as the default? Having gyms or gym memberships as the default in each workplace? What other “special requests” that we make in the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle that could become the default? Salad dressing and other sauces always served on the side in restaurants?

Comments

[LeslieT]

I would like to see the default be big servings of interesting vegetables on dinner platters. Currently the default in most places is a starch of some kind and an iceberg lettuce salad. To try to get a decent serving of vegetables in the average restaurant is almost impossible. One exception in the Boston area is a seafood chain called Naked Fish, that offers a nice list of veggie sides that you can choose from. I really wish more restaurants would follow that example.

[LeslieT]

I would like to see the default be big servings of interesting vegetables on dinner platters. Currently the default in most places is a starch of some kind and an iceberg lettuce salad. To try to get a decent serving of vegetables in the average restaurant is almost impossible. One exception in the Boston area is a seafood chain called Naked Fish, that offers a nice list of veggie sides that you can choose from. I really wish more restaurants would follow that example.

[Michael]

I am more for education than "forcing" this.

Lattes, Cappuccinos etc. are not "food replacement" they are part of it, and "forcing" down the milkfat content won't make a difference for the average drinker. What does it achieve if people drop 1.5% of their ("small") latte? Nothing really. Portion control is more important than this smoke & mirror approach to "eating healthy".

What Starbucks pulls here is a bit like the manufacturer who puts the caloric content of 1 cookie on the packaging but packages them in twos.

[Sandra]

I agree with Michael that smaller portions would be good. Starbucks sells "short" espresso drinks, but they are not on the menu. The smallest one listed on the menu is the "tall" so most people don't even know the "short" exists. It tastes better (stronger) since it has the same amount of espresso (one shot) as the "tall" and is less diluted.

Switching over to lowfat milk as the default is a good move, but they should also change their signboards to inform consumers about the option of "short" espresso drinks.

[steve]

I doubt any customers will even note of any change in taste.

[Mara]

"Having gyms or gym memberships as the default in each workplace? What other “special requests” that we make in the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle that could become the default? Salad dressing and other sauces always served on the side in restaurants?"

I'm all for changes like this, that do not cause harm or stigma (I doubt anyone will even notice the change in the Lattes either, but it can't hurt and might help).

Basically it's a small step in the right direction.

I don't think we need to go nuts trying to make these changes but I really do think they help.

As I've said before, McDonalds has some great tasting, fairly healthy new salads (the Asian one is very good and the South-Western one is also supposed to be not only healthier than a burger and fries but also tasty).

Changes likes these (as opposed to taxes on junk food) hurt no one, are not punitive in any way and do a real good in the world by subtly shifting the balance away from a completely obesogenic food environment.

[Doctor Allen]

"Having gyms or gym memberships as the default in each workplace?"

This is a great idea. I wouldn't offer gym membership as an employee benefit, because that would be wasteful and not everyone who wanted to use the membership could; but having exercise facilities "on campus" is a great idea.

The American workplace has become increasingly depersonalized. There's a sense that everyone is there on a temporary basis. (Most, in fact, are there on a temporary basis--employed by temporary services.) We need to make the workplace feel like a family again.

Now, this quickly becomes a catch-22, because American society is also suffering paternalism on the college campuses and in the media culture. The last thing I want is for employers to treat employees like children.

If we could develop a fitness culture in the workplace, though, that didn't revolve around childish team sports or demeaning "through the motions" routines (especially routines that don't result in employees attaining fitness), it could be great. The key is to make employees feel that they are *working together* and *becoming better people* together. The workplace should be an arena for achieving personal excellence.

Personal excellence...that value seems no longer to exist. It seems "personal indulgence" is all anyone understands today. (It's all the corporation wants us to understand. People who attain excellence themselves don't need to seek it in consumer products.)

Rightwing military dictatorship may be the only way to make people attain excellence. If they won't do it for themselves, they'll do it for the victory of the American Imperial Army.

[Mara]

"Rightwing military dictatorship may be the only way to make people attain excellence. If they won't do it for themselves, they'll do it for the victory of the American Imperial Army."

You just spoke out against "paternalism". Then you say you are for "rightwing dictatorship". You are a mass of contradictions.

[Doctor Allen]

Not contradictory. Complex.

The difference between paternalism and rightwing military dictatorship is the difference between life on a typical U.S. college campus and in the U.S. Marine Corp.

To put it another way, paternalism is when the individual is forced to remain a child. Rightwing military dictatorship does the complete opposite of that.

I don't want to treat people like children. I want to fundamentally transform their way of life.

[Mara]

"Rightwing military dictatorship does the complete opposite of that."

Yes, well, it not only breaks people down (completely denying their right to be who they are and think for themselves and act in their Own best interests), but it also uses them, brutalizes them and then dumps them out into the "old home for machismo blowhards" when they are no longer needed (and/or they aren't killed).

Doctor Allen, your ideas are the symbolic embodiement of the gym teacher from hell.

Not that I don't also find you an interesting mix of, uh, the "complex".

[Doctor Allen]

Does the criminal justice system deny people their right to be who they want to be, think for themselves, and act in their own best interest?

Does the church?

Does the mature adult conscience?

I don't believe anyone has a right to be wrong. People who are wrong must be corrected.

[Shefaly]

@Doctor Allen - I think wrong is too subjective for anyone to be forcibly corrected. After all, your and my not following Islam is wrong in the eyes of muslims, so should they forcibly convert us? In some cultures, pre-marital sex is not encouraged or seen as acceptable; so should those from more liberal societies force people in the aforementioned to experience pre-marital sex?

People have a right to believe what they want. (Luckily the whole world is not China, where everyone must have the same beliefs and judgement of right/ wrong as dictated by some central authority.) That freedom of belief is as much a part of a free society's living principles as some other people's ability to express their views, state facts that challenge those beliefs, and otherwise attempt to persuade other people.

So while you may believe that nobody has a right to be wrong, most here would disagree with your contention that they 'must be corrected'.

[Doctor Allen]

I'm not saying that everyone with an opinion different from mine should be corrected.

First of all, I'm more than willing to accept that I'm wrong about certain things. In fact, I hope I am wrong about certain things. I wish I was wrong.

Second, one can only be "wrong" about things about which it is possible to be wrong. It's not possible to be wrong about your favorite color or style of music.

But we're not talking about favorite color or style of music. We're talking about physical fitness and health, which is not subjective. You either live a healthy lifestyle or you don't, and being overweight is wrong. Therefore people who eat junk food, don't exercise, and are overweight by choice need to be corrected for both their own benefit and for the good of the nation.

"After all, your and my not following Islam is wrong in the eyes of muslims, so should they forcibly convert us?"

They should try. After all, their God does command them to do so.

For that same reason, we should annihilate them and turn their countries into Chevrons.

Which invisible being rules the sky is one of those things about which it is possible to be wrong. In fact, all but one of the religions HAS to be wrong. So eliminating all belief in the supernatural would be the next order of business for my rightwing military dictatorship.

But this is a side issue.

[Mara]

Thanks for sharing, Doctor Allen.

[Sandra]

I really can't believe someone on a health website would post "we should annihilate them" in reference to a religious group (Muslims).

I hope his comment will be removed. It is beyond reprehensible.

[Doctor Allen]

I think my comment was clear in condemning all religion and not singling out Muslims.

If I appear lenient towards Christians, that is due purely to pragmatic concerns. (For instance, Christians control most of the nuclear bombs and happen to be concentrated in the free world. If the tables were turned, I would favor Islam.)

Anyway, if you want to blame someone, blame Shefaly for bringing it up.

[Sandra]

Do you think I'm too stupid to use the scroll back feature on my mouse? I know what you wrote. You advocated annihilating Muslims, which is a horrible, inexcusable thing to write. What is your problem?

[Doctor Allen]

Oh, please.

Grow a spine.

[KS]

Wouldn't it be fabulous if Mara and Doctor Allen were actually the same person, multiple personalities having this same fight with each other over nearly every post? It would be almost epic, really, and calm my fear that somewhere in the world there's a person who thinks that obese people aren't their own worse critics when, to be honest, most punish themselves more than he ever could.

[Doctor Allen]

KS, do you mean you aren't troubled by pro-fat agitators poisoning the anti-obesity discussion with their Utopian vision of a fat Earth?

"most punish themselves more than he ever could."

The difference is they punish themselves with ice cream sandwiches.

Political correctness will not solve the obesity problem. We need to get tough, and we need to MAKE people change. You are unwilling to do that and so are trying to find ways to appease fat people. That's this whole debate in a nutshell.

What I've tried to explain to you people many times, and what you have apparently never heard, is that I don't ONLY want to punish fat people. That would be ridiculous. That would achieve nothing. But you see that and block out everything else I have to say.

I think popular liberal Christianity (the kind you get in cartoon shows) may be to blame for this. "Judge not lest ye be judged." "Love your enemies." You people grew up in a culture of namby-pamby nonsense that has rendered you incapable of both judgment and action.

We have a problem: obesity.

We need to solve that problem.

To avoid becoming overweight or to lose weight, one must recognize that being fat is wrong.

Promoting the ideas that "fat is beautiful" and that "people come in all different sizes" runs contrary to the goal of making people recognize that being fat is wrong.

If fat is beautiful, and if people come in all different sizes, then WHY IN THE WORLD would anybody lose weight?

We have to draw a line. Okay? We have to say, "This is right, and this is wrong." If we don't make our values clear, then who in the world is going to listen?

"Oh, those academics, they have a lot of ideas, but they can't decide between right and wrong."

America is laughing at you and getting fatter by the day!

[Mara]

"Wouldn't it be fabulous if Mara and Doctor Allen were actually the same person"

We are not the same person. My views are completely opposite to his, but I have not descended to calling him names because of that. I tried a bit of humor with him, and that, clearly, is not something he can handle. Nor can he deal with disagreement in a semi-civil way. I am not the only one here he has insulted, either.