By Sarah Henry

Mayor Thomas M. Menino is continuing his crusade against harmful health habits in Boston with the recent launch of a public awareness campaign against sugary drinks. The campaign, which was unveiled Sept. 6, was designed to convince residents to reduce their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and in turn reduce the amount of preventable diseases such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and decrease its impact on health care costs.

By implementing radio, TV, MBTA, print and billboard advertising, Menino hopes to reach caregivers, who do most of the shopping for a household, and teens, who consume more sugary drinks than any other group, according to a city press release.

This past April, Menino banned the sale of sugary drinks on city-owned property. The ban granted affected municipal properties six months to phase out the sale of “red” beverages are known to be loaded with sugar, the city press release said. Non-diet sodas, pre-sweetened iced teas, refrigerated coffee drinks, energy drinks, juice drinks with added sugar and sport drinks fall into this category.

With the Oct. 7 deadline approaching, the public awareness campaign marks the next step in Menino’s quest for better health for Bostonians.

“This campaign is a unique opportunity for Boston residents to have a real dialogue about how sugary beverages contribute to obesity rates and lead to other preventable diseases like Type 2 diabetes,” the City’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, said in a press release. “The nation spends $147 billion a year to treat obesity-related health conditions and Boston is not immune to that. It costs more to treat obese patients than a patient with a healthy weight.”

Although Menino’s efforts don’t affect Northeastern directly, the media crusade against these drinks will reach students through TV and Internet ads, in addition to MBTA stations now being plastered with ads featuring globs of fat flying at a person drinking soda, or sugary drinks being compared to not buckling a child’s seat belt.

Upon seeing the ads, third year psychology major Casey Knotts called the campaign “a bit extreme.”

“But it’s a shock effect that the mayor is going for,” Knotts continued, “and I think that this new ad campaign will be very effective in achieving its goal.”

Knotts, who drinks soda a couple times a week as a treat, said that the university should take the initiative to offer healthier choices in vending machines.

The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is contemplating a ban similar to Menino’s in hopes to achieve University President Mark Huddleston’s goal to become the healthiest campus in the country by 2020. Huddleston announced Monday that UNH would ban the sale of energy drinks on campus, but recanted the plan within hours due to strong, negative student reaction.

“I want to be sure we respect our students’ ability to make informed choices about what they consume,” Huddleston said in a statement Tuesday night. “I have asked my colleagues to defer implementation of the intended ban until we can further explore the relevant facts and involve students more directly in our decision.”

In harmony with Huddleston, Megan Foran, freshman speech-language pathology and audiology major and NU swimmer, said that while she agrees with Knott that minimizing harmful drinks on campus and replacing them with healthier options would be a good move on the university’s part, “people should be able to know what is good for their bodies and what isn’t.”

Dr. Jessica Hoffman, a professor in the Department of Counseling and Applied Education Psychology, has spent years promoting fruit and vegetable consumption in Boston Public Schools, as well as specializing in prevention of school-based childhood obesity.

“[Menino’s ban and his new campaign] are positive steps that the City of Boston is taking to to prevent and reduce obesity across the city,” Hoffman said. “Environmental changes such as the ban on sugar sweetened beverages are designed to make it easier for people to make healthier choices.”

Hoffman added that she believes the ban and campaign will have its desired affect by raising awareness in Boston.

It’d be shocking if it didn’t, considering the globs of fat floating around the city.