Welcome to the Nanny State: A Post-Soda Ban Look At New York City’s Biggest Crackdowns
Baby Formula
Earlier this month, the Bloomberg administration rolled out the grossly-titled Latch On NYC initiative, asking hospitals to “voluntarily sign on to support a mother’s choice to breastfeed and limit the promotion of infant formula in their facilities which can interfere with that decision.”
Theoretically this just meant ending the practice of keeping promotional formula in hospital rooms and promoting (already widely known) facts about the health benefits of breast milk through aggressive advertising. In practice, it’s sparked widespread outrage among women of all political affiliations, who cite the already excessive social pressure to breastfeed at all costs, along with the well-documented efficacy of baby formula.
For now, it doesn’t seem that the policy has changed anything too radically, but if your website requires an entire section dedicated to dispelling “myths,” (such as the assumption that mothers seeking formula will require written consent similar to that required for drugs), something has gone off the rails.