One of the major reasons for decades of health campaigns and scientific research about the dangers of sugar soft drinks is that US is drinking less soda near consumption. Nearly January. Paper In nature, it has been found that in 2020, 2.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cases of cardiovascular disease worldwide were attributed to sugar sweet drinks. But many of us have not yet received a memo – today’s average American drinks about 12 12 ounces of sugar sodas a day. For everyone who does not drink soda, there is 24 ounces every day.
Why are we still drinking so much drink that makes people sick?
Eight years ago, two priests filed a lawsuit over Coca -Cola, the country’s most famous soda company, and the American Beverage Association for “their deception marketing, labeling, and the sale of Chinese sweet drinks of Coca -Cola.” ComplaintWashington, DC, alleged that Coca -Cola knew about science that sugar connects sweet drinks to chronic diseases, but aggressively confused these links through public campaigns. Some people believed that the case would eventually indicate the balance of public opinion against Coke – as well as a court case against Prado Pharma in 2007, about misleading marketing of Oxy Concerton addiction. But when I cover my new book, “Sweet and fatal“Every jaw is presented by health supporters by coke and its allies.
Like tobacco companies, Cook has spent millions of spinning science to hide the health costs of soda from the public and reduce sugar risks. In fact, Coke has been more in this game than the tobacco industry. When the Tobacco Industry Research Committee launched disinformation campaigns in 1954, it imported its staff and strategies from the Sugar Research Foundation, locking, stock and barrels, which partially funded through Coke. Soda companies were a PR strategy pioneer who is now known as tobacco playbook.
For decades, Billion 300 billion corporations have deceived users by promoting messages that are either misleading or flat -out. It has used an extensive network of allies and proxy groups to carry their messages, including co -scientists and their research, and have spent billions of dollars on ads that connect Coke with hot and ambiguous emotions representing polar bears, centusters and happy families. Coca -Cola has so far faced a major calculation for her outfit role in the US health crisis.
One of the nutrients that spreads Coca -Cola is the idea that calories are a calorie. “We don’t believe in empty calories,” Katie Bine, a former Coke’s chief marketing officer, said in 2012. Next year, CEO of the corporation, James Quanni, said, “When we talk about obesity, there is a calorie. The problem is where it is coming, there is a calorie.
But in the human body, not all calories are made equal – far away from it. Research It has long been shown that a calorie of liquid sugar is not metabolized in the same way, such as calories of whole grains, for example, or calories of fruits or nuts. These calories contain fiber, vitamins and other nutrients that are not present in soda.
Coke also promotes the relevant message of “energy balance”. The simplest energy balance arguments say that a calorie of food will be metabolized, whether it comes from cashew, bananas, or coca -cola, so consumers should focus on trying to burn more calories, not on the type of food. Coke is especially interested in emphasizing the calorie outskirts of equality.
Coke is in the business of selling sugar water. If he tries to reduce the sale of his product, it will violate his responsibilities with his shareholders.
It was the focus of the Global Energy Balance Network, which was started by researchers from Colorado University and South Carolina University in 2014. One of the experts, Steven Blair, served as Yumin to transmit the focus of Americans from dietary elements to calories and to balance calories. In a video for the organization, Blair said, “In the famous media, in the scientific press, most attention ‘oh, they are eating too much, eating a lot, eating too much.” This is the reason why there is no compulsive evidence to blame the fast foods, to blame sugar beverages, and so on, and in fact, there is no compulsive evidence.
In 2015, the New York Times Display It was revealed that the Global Energy Balance Network was just a front group for Coca -Cola. The corporation had financed and guided it since its inception, but he wanted to look free. This indicated a very public apology from Coke’s then CEO Mahatter Kent, which was written “We will improve” a Wall Street Journal column. Coca -Cola did not respond to numerous requests to comment about the story.
But it was spread only by misleading messaging coke. In a May 2013 blog post, Coca -Cola changed its success in removing calories from the American diet through the formation of its products, the size and promotion of the part. “Yesterday, the top food and beverage manufacturers of the United States announced an important milestone: more than 1.5 trillion calories have been removed from the US market.” “This success is the result of a healthy weight commitment Foundation (HWCF) efforts, which is a coalition of 16 Food and Beverage Corporate Partners, including Coca -Cola Company, and more than 230 organizations, which are working together to help reduce obesity, especially childhood obesity.”
The post was operating in a program organized at the Hudson Institute under a photo of former Agriculture Secretary Dan Gulkman, HWCF’s Lisa Gible, and author Hank Cardello. Although this photo appears to be talking about the problem of three independent experts, the whole incident was played by Coke, Pepsi and other food corporations. The alone gave the Hudson Institute hundreds of thousands of dollars and $ 5 million to HWCF.
What the company has not mentioned is that the Coca -Cola market can remove more calories from the market in a heartbeat. Not only aggressively marketing these calories dense beverages, but it also introduces new coke mixtures that in some cases, such as Coca -Cola is more sugar than the original Coca -Cola.
Coke is in the business of selling sugar water. If he tries to reduce the sale of his product, it will violate his responsibilities with his shareholders. (The CEO regrets who announce on the earnings call-“We did this, finally managed to reduce the amount of the coke we have sold, thus reducing calories!”) What is unexpected for Coca-Cola to sell more than any other corporation than any other corporation.
A front group took the sugar supporter a little away. The International Life Sciences Institute, which was founded by an executive of Coca -Cola in the 1980s, spent decades wandering Food Science in favor of its corporate funders, including Herche, Craft and Kelog. But when he funded A 2016 Research Paper Criticizing the growing body of science on the health risks of sugar, it was far away for some of its corporate members. At the moment, Mars spokesman, Matthews Berninger, said the article would not help consumers to choose better. When Mars left the ILSI in 2018, Beringer said, “We do not want to be involved in advocacy studies, which often, for most of the exact reasons, has been criticized.” Two years later, Coke quietly left the group.
In 2018, Coke was part of a vast front group that helped withdraw against soda taxes that were implemented by several California municipalities. Coke and its soda industry allies, under the guise of a campaign called California, “organized by California businesses,” accountability and transparency for California, “to support the move across the state, for which any local taxpayers need to be approved by the decision to approve the issue. The California lawmakers will do anything to remove it, with the signing of the Soda to the Alliance, Sacramento. Legislators contract And as a rider on the budget bill, this supply forward. This strategy, known as preparation, has also been effective for gun rights groups.
Coke has created this vast parallel world to mislead consumers about the health risks of Chinese sweeteners and to mislead consumers to mislead consumers and to take strategic measures such as soda tax. All the innocent sounds mentioned above are part of the Coke Funding group that has stopped the balance of public opinion against Coca -Cola, as it includes other corporations such as tobacco company Philip Morris, Period Pharma, and Exxon. In 2024 ACSOS HARRYS Pool 100, which holds the company’s credibility, ranked 27th with a “very good” score in No. 86 with Exxon’s “fair” score. The PR strategy ensures that Coca -Cola appears in the brightness of goodness, while it remains profitable and permanently rewards its shareholders.
And that DC case? It has been dragging for years, as Coke’s advanced legal team successfully ended it. The plaintiffs finally withdrew the suit in 2019. Coke won again.
Murray Carry There is a health and science journalist and “Sweet and Dedley: How Coca -Cola becomes disabled and makes us sick” and “Cafferate: How our daily habit helps, hurts and sees us.”
This story has been “shielded from”Sweet and fatal: How Coca -Cola spreads the informed information and makes us sick “ Murray grows. Copyright 2025 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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