Jeff Ritterman is spearheading the effort to campaign successfully for the Richmond Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax and is looking for campaign donations. I hope you can help.

For The Sake of Our Kids, Help Us Beat Big Soda

This November, the voters of Richmond, California will decide whether to impose a one-cent per ounce tax on all sugar sweetened beverages sold within city limits.  The voters will also weigh in on an advisory measure directing the funds to: after school sports programs, making participation less expensive for our children and providing adequate sports fields; improving the nutrition of school meals, teaching cooking, gardening and nutrition in our schools and helping our diabetic children get the health care they need.

If it passes, Richmond will make history.  We will be the first city in the United States to have passed a sugar sweetened beverage tax in order to help reverse the obesity epidemic.

Fully one third of Richmond’s fifth and seventh grade African American and Latino students are obese and an additional twenty per cent are overweight in each group.  If we are not able to provide a successful intervention 48% of the adult population in our city will be obese when these kids reach adulthood.  Most will suffer the ravages of diabetes and heart disease.  Many will not live as long as their parents.

It’s not the fat we see around our waistlines that is the real problem.  It’s the fat that packs our livers and other organs and the unhealthy fats which circulate in the blood stream and plug up our coronary arteries leading to heart attacks.

It turns out that the “old” adage that all foods can be part of a balanced diet no longer applies to sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks and any of the other liquid concoctions on the market which are filled with high fructose corn syrup or sucrose. Each is equally harmful.

The new science has now shown that one can of sugar-sweetened beverage a day increases the risk of a heart attack by twenty per cent, and also causes type two diabetes, weight gain and some cancers.

Sugar sweetened beverages have no nutritional value.  We now know that they cause significant harm.  Sadly, these products are aggressively marketed to our children.   Communities of color are particularly singled out for intense marketing efforts.  It’s no surprise that we have a huge problem that is getting worse.

We can reverse this epidemic.  Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the one-cent per ounce sugar sweetened beverage tax could be the “single most effective measure to reverse the obesity epidemic.”  The tax is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Heart Association, The American Public Health Association and the United Nations.

We can win this in Richmond, but we need your help.  We have no paid staff.  This is an entirely volunteer effort.  We need immediate funds for printing costs, and mailings. 

The beverage industry has already come to town and clearly has very deep pockets and is fighting us aggressively.

When we win in Richmond, the dominoes will begin the fall and this will eventually be a statewide victory and than a national one.

Let’s do it for our kids and for the health of the nation.  Please make a generous contribution today.  No contribution is too small.

checks:
Fit For Life
1021 Macdonald Ave.
Richmond, CA 94801

or log on and make a PayPal donation:
http://www.fit-for-life.org/

 

Jeff Ritterman, M.D.
Richmond City Council (for identification purposes only)
510-384-1315
Jeffritterman@yahoo.com