{"id":3518,"date":"2019-12-19T06:19:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T06:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mymedicplus.com\/news\/?p=3518"},"modified":"2021-03-31T00:06:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:36:06","slug":"coca-cola-internal-documents-reveal-efforts-to-sell-to-teens-despite-obesity-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedicplus.com\/blog\/coca-cola-internal-documents-reveal-efforts-to-sell-to-teens-despite-obesity-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Coca-Cola internal documents reveal efforts to sell to teens, despite obesity crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n

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Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympic Games since 1928, the longest-standing brand partner and one that has helped many National Olympic Committees send athletes to compete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So says the beginning of a Coca-Cola\u00a0internal document, a global request for proposal for a public relations campaign for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. The budget? $1.5 million to $2.5 million. Among the target audience? Teens and moms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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A\u00a0new paper\u00a0in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health this week found that the Coca-Cola Company\u2019s public relations goals included trying to shift teens\u2019 sense of the health impacts of drinking sugary soda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Obesity rates for children have tripled since the 1970s, an increase that puts children at greater risk of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. The 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination\u00a0Survey\u00a0found 18.5 percent of kids ages 2 to 19 were obese. In the United States, childhood obesity\u00a0is estimated\u00a0to cost $14 billion annually in direct health expenses.<\/p>\n

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Rates of obesity among adults are even worse: In 2007, 33.7 percent of American adults were obese. The most recent estimates approach\u00a040 percent, according to the American Medical Association.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The paper, produced by Australia\u2019s Deakin University and U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit consumer and public health group, includes another\u00a0Coca-Cola document, a request for proposal for a campaign called \u201cMovement Is Happiness.\u201d Its public relations goals included \u201cto increase Coke brand health scores with teens\u201d and to \u201ccement credibility in the health and well-being space.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Countries such as Mexico, Chile and Brazil have pushed back against sugary sodas legislatively, enacting sugary drink taxes and limiting marketing and advertising\u00a0directly to kids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, says after reviewing thousands of pages of requested documents from Coca-Cola, some themes emerge.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOne of these is Coca-Cola\u2019s efforts to evade responsibility for the global obesity epidemic,\u201d he said by phone. \u201cEven though the health problems are quite severe in the U.S., we live under de facto corporate control; the food industry is incredibly powerful in the U.S. What\u2019s insidious here is a health campaign that is using tobacco\u2019s tactics, promoting alternative science in a way that advances the notion that sugary sodas aren\u2019t really so bad for people\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ruskin says Coca-Cola is intentionally targeting a vulnerable population.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kent Landers, vice president of public affairs and communications at the Coca-Cola Company, says these internal documents predate Coke\u2019s 2016 commitment to discontinue funding physical activity programs. He says Coca-Cola has repositioned itself as a \u201ctotal beverage company\u201d with products that include water, juice, juice drinks, tea, coffee, sports drinks and energy drinks as well as sodas.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt Coca-Cola, we recognize that too much sugar isn\u2019t good for anyone,\u201d Landers said. \u201cThat\u2019s why, around the world, we are reducing the amount of sugar in our products and taking other steps to help people reduce their sugar intake. In fact, in 2017-2018, we eliminated 425,000 tons of sugar from our global portfolio of products through innovations such as new recipes, smaller packs and wider availability of low- and zero-sugar products.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the \u201cMovement Is Happiness\u201d internal document, which dates to 2013, there is a commitment to offer low- or no-calorie beverages in every market, to provide transparent nutrition information, and to not pitch advertising to children under age 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Benjamin Wood, a PhD candidate at Deakin University and one of the study\u2019s authors, says the documents show how explicit Coca-Cola is in targeting teenagers and that younger populations are not immune.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe wanted to raise awareness of these hidden tactics and strategies to target teenagers and their mothers,\u201d Wood said. \u201cCoke also uses the recruitment of role models for young children.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ruskin points to Coca-Cola\u2019s powerful and far-reaching political apparatus as an impediment to enacting good sugary drink policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a global effort from policymakers and public health people across the world trying to grasp the \u2026 effect of ultra-processed food on human health,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a weapon of mass destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[2585,273,51,81],"class_list":["post-3518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weight-loss-gain","tag-coca-cola","tag-health","tag-obesity","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"\nCoca-Cola internal documents reveal efforts to sell to teens, despite obesity crisis - MyMedicPlus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mymedicplus.com\/blog\/coca-cola-internal-documents-reveal-efforts-to-sell-to-teens-despite-obesity-crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coca-Cola internal documents reveal efforts to sell to teens, despite obesity crisis - 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