U.S. Rejects Mayor’s Plan to Ban Use of Food Stamps to Buy Soda

A recent article in the New York Times discusses how federal officials recently rejected Mayor Bloomberg's plan to bar NYC food stamp recipients from buying sodas and other sugary drinks with the food stamps.

In October, city and state officials proposed a two-year experiment to see if the prohibition would reduce obesity among food stamp recipients. With obesity running rampant in low-income neighborhoods, it was thought that limiting consumption of sodas and other drinks with high sugar content could help reverse that trend. But the city received a letter from Washington stating the proposed experiment would have been “too large and complex” to implement and evaluate.