Most importantly, this regulation as well as proposed policies
that were not enacted or implemented such as the three soda
initiatives that failed at different levels of government may have
changed attitudes and behaviors more widely and ultimately
contributed to positive health impacts.
‘‘Life-expectancy expanded dramatically during the Bloomberg
administration. [. . .] Sugary drink consumption is plummeting
and we have good data on that. Childhood obesity rates are also
going down in New York City right now. So a lot of things did
succeed in the ultimate thing we care about, even though some
of the policies themselves didn’t go through.”
[Interviewee 1, DOHMH]
Indeed, New York experienced a general increase in
life-expectancy that outpaced national trends (Li et al., 2013) and
obesity prevalence among city elementary and middle school students
(CDC, 2011) and children from low-income families
(Sekhobo et al., 2014) decreased across New York City. These
improvements, often observed in studies with ecological design,
do not allow any claim of causality in relation to food policy.
However, antismoking laws and ‘‘associations with both citywide
and targeted policies” (Li et al., 2013:11), including food policy