Coca-Cola's Demon Drinks

Submitted by Bob Burton on

Coca-Cola's new advertising campaign - titled "Drink, Choose, Live" - is aimed at reassuring parents that it has products other than soft drinks. The company states, "If you're not in the mood for water, it's OK to also reach for something else you enjoy, like juice or a soft drink. Of course water is always the best choice; it's just not the only one." Earlier in the week, the company's Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness organized a breakfast session for those attending the International Congress on Obesity in Sydney. One of those speaking at the session was John Foreyt, the director of the Behavioural Medicine Research Centre at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. High-sugar drinks, he complained, have been "demonised … it's a single-culprit theory."

Main Source: 
Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 2006
Topics: 
Obesity
Children
Corporations

Comments

Pani113 replied on

Other sponsors of this International Obesity Conference include:
Sanofi-Aventis (third-largest pharma company, makes diet pills)
Reductil (diet pill)
Roche (another big pharma with diet pills on its product list)
Jenny Craig
Weight Watchers
Novartis Medical Nutrition (sells diet and "health" products)
Merck Sharp & Dohme

If I had to vote for worst sensationalist comment out of this whole tacky commercial it would be obesity is as big a threat as global warming. Even if they weren't exaggerating the health claims, obesity takes a few years off the lives of people in Western societies who don't even know how they are going to handle that many seniors anyway. Global warming can destory life as we know it for future generations. Can one really compare a few years off the life of a 75yr old to the aftermath of Katrina times 100 (or even one Katrina for that matter.) It is absolutely disgusting. What is even more disgusting is this scare mongering headlines have been going on for decades. Meanwhile crash dieting makes us fatter, but that is good for business. Risky diet pills and surgery make us sick, but that is good for business too. Billions of dollars a year go into this sick obsession (and the hands of few who control the business
On the other hand, it we declared a truce on the war on fat for 5 years and just walked instead of using cars when possible, obsessing over our carbon footprints instead of our waistlines, we could spread that money around and do some good, have healthier bodies even if they are not going to be as thin as we have been lead to believe, and possible save the planet. Too simple I guess!!!!!!!

"Weight obsession is a social disease. If we cared more about CO2 than BMI there would still be time."