As you fire up the backyard barbecue this weekend, you don’t need to worry about keeping that ice-cold can of Coke out of sight of your nosy neighbours, for fear that they’ll report you to the Ottawa health department. At least, not yet.

In questioning before the board of health, and in a letter to the Sun last week, Ottawa’s chief medical health officer Dr. Isra Levy refused to rule out a ban on sugar-sweetened soft drinks. But he did say “a regulatory solution” to the over-consumption of sugar “is a long way off for Ottawa.” City Hall has been the target of a letter-writing campaign from local employees of Coca Cola, who object to being singled out for special attention from the food police.

Mayor Watson denies the city is targeting the soft drink industry. He calls the health board’s healthy eating strategy “a balanced plan” and “a wise course of action.” But the strategy clearly targets the industry, proposing a social media campaign on the health effects of consuming sugar sweetened beverages.

The report highlights the alarming survey statistic that nearly 80 percent of school age students in Ottawa reported drinking at least one sugar-sweetened beverage in the previous week.

To be fair, a 591-ml bottle of Coke contains 65 grams of sugar, 75 grams of carbs and 240 calories.

Pursuing the same line of reasoning, the health board should broaden its line of attack. The city has long been a hotbed of poutine consumption. If a ban on soda may be a long way off, poutine cries out for an immediate crackdown.

A serving of country-style poutine, with its bacon, cheese curds, gravy, and french fries, contains 1,422 calories, 70 grams of fat and a staggering 2,484 mg of sodium. An entire day’s helping of fat, a day and half’s supply of sodium in one cardboard container.

Let’s not stop at rounding up the chip wagon operators. Ottawa’s hometown burger chain, Works Burger, serves ground beef with peanut butter, bacon and banana slices — a full day’s ration of calories, fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol.

Play, the hot foodie hangout in the Byward Market, offers pork bellies seared with maple syrup and tamarind, garnished with watercress. Watercress aside, people, we’re talking about 520 calories and 92 percent fat. Add in the wine pairing (Australian Kingston Estate Petit Verdot 2010), you’re looking at another 225 calories. Maybe it’s time we revisit prohibition, Dr. Levy.

Before we petition City Hall to save us from Coke, poutine, burgers and the Byward Market, it’s worth noting that 20 percent of Ottawa teenagers drank no sugar-sweetened soft drinks at all, and 26 percent drank only one in a week. 34 percent had 2 to 4 drinks in a week. Only 12 percent had one a day or more. Ottawa teenagers consume less soda than the Ontario average.

With more than 1,000 interviews, researchers failed to link teenagers’ soft drink consumption with their Body Mass Index — the measurement of obesity. After two hours of basketball practice, teenagers sometimes empty the refrigerator.

And that’s another danger for Dr. Levy to tackle: Exercise. The health board heard in May that recreation-related injuries result in an average six deaths and 6,700 visits to Ottawa emergency rooms annually.

We’re paying Dr. Levy $317,577 a year. It’s time he got to the bottom of this vicious cycle — eating, drinking and exercise —that clearly poses such a threat to our youth.