Abstract
Introduction
Obesity is a pervasive public health problem in the U.S. Reducing soda consumption is important for stemming the obesity epidemic. However, several articles and one book suggest that soda companies are using their resources to impede public health interventions that might reduce soda consumption. Although corporate sponsorship by tobacco and alcohol companies has been studied extensively, there has been no systematic attempt to catalog sponsorship activities of soda companies. This study investigates the nature, extent, and implications of soda company sponsorship of U.S. health and medical organizations, as well as corporate lobbying expenditures on soda- or nutrition-related public health legislation from 2011 to 2015.
Methods
Records of corporate philanthropy and lobbying expenditures on public health legislation by soda companies in the U.S. during 2011–2015 were found through Internet and database searches.
Results
From 2011 to 2015, the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo were found to sponsor a total of 95 national health organizations, including many medical and public health institutions whose specific missions include fighting the obesity epidemic. During the study period, these two soda companies lobbied against 29 public health bills intended to reduce soda consumption or improve nutrition.
Conclusions
There is surprisingly pervasive sponsorship of national health and medical organizations by the nation’s two largest soda companies. These companies lobbied against public health intervention in 97% of cases, calling into question a sincere commitment to improving the public’s health. By accepting funding from these companies, health organizations are inadvertently participating in their marketing plans.
Graham
8 comments:
...it's all about the money.
Your conclusion is absolutely correct. Publicity is publicity no matter what form it takes or who helps get it out there. Thanks for sharing.
to be fair, they also own health drinks and bottled water as well. Still quite ironic though
Soda companies? Ah yes, thought I should um, pop over to your site and read this.
Ironic that the two mentioned companies would, somewhat cynically, sponsor 95 national health organisations.
I drink pure sparkling water from Buxton over here in England. Mix it with some high concentrate juice and I have a wonderfully refreshing beverage.
Thank you for this post, Jan.
Gary
I work in a medical clinic, and a couple of years ago there was a campaign in Australia trying to get people to reduce their soft drink consumption. Of course that was enough for Coca-cola to send out leaflets to the Doctors advising them that they also produced sugar-free drinks and that they should advise their patients to choose that alternative!
Well, the leaflets didn't make it past reception, they all went into the bin!
How ridiculous could they be!!
Love this recipe ! sounds delicious!
I really don't like fizzy drinks! They are just sugar! It is shocking what people fall for!
I just saw a commercial the other day here in the U.S. that coke and pepsi are making smaller serving cans of pop and are also making other drinks that are more healthy (they say) but my hubby by mistake bought raspberry tea for our trip we took and we usually buy unsweetened tea and that tea had something like 140 calories in it, that is just crazy, to me that isn't healthy. I just felt like they were trying to pass themselves off as being more healthy now and wonder how many people are falling for it.
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