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Lafayette considering bill restricting sugary drinks on children's menus

Posted at 6:30 AM, Sep 24, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-24 20:28:35-04

DENVER -- In just a few weeks, the Lafayette city council will vote on a bill that would restrict restaurants from advertising sugary drinks to children.

“Today, out of 75 restaurants in Lafayette, 22 have a children’s menu and that children’s menu is usually with a sugary drink in them,” mayor pro-tem Gustavo Reyna told Anne Trujillo on this week’s Politics Unplugged. “Our youth advisory commission looked at that and said this is a default and that adults tends to go in that direction as well. So when a child chooses that as a default, as an adults they become sugar drinkers as well.”

The ordinance wouldn't ban the sale of soda, but simply discourage consumption in an effort to curb childhood obesity. Reyna say even in a state as active as Colorado, one in four kids is obese or overweight and one in three kids born since 2000 will eventually develop Type 2 Diabetes.

He says that’s why the city’s youth advisory commission thought this issue was an important issue for them to study it.

Politics Unplugged airs Sundays at 4 p.m. on Denver7.