The soda giant's slick campaign to
make us think its products are getting healthier might change public
perceptions — but it won’t make soda good for you.
Does
Coca-Cola think we’re all really stupid?
For
the first time, the company is using its slick commercials to address obesity.
Obesity became a high-profile issue in the 1990s, when the government started
to classify more than half of Americans as overweight or obese. Soda companies
are often targets of anti-obesity campaigns because their products contain
massive amounts of sugar with no nutritional value.
But
Coke’s new ads, which are brimming with misleading statements, just put
lipstick on this pig.
As
for the rest of the company’s portfolio, it peddles juice and juice drinks,
sports drinks, energy drinks, and bottled water. Except for the water, these
are all essentially bottled liquid sugar. In some cases, the liquid sugar
contains some vitamins.
Even
though fruit juice comes from fruit, it takes about three or four oranges to
make a cup of juice. Do you ever sit down and eat four oranges at once? I
didn’t think so. Even if you did, you’d consume fiber in addition to sugary
juice, and you’d feel full and eat less later. When we drink our calories, our
bodies don’t respond by eating less later like they do when we eat calories.
As
for the diet and no-calorie products, studies have found that artificial
sweeteners actually make you fatter. Experts can’t say exactly why. They say it could be because
artificial sweeteners trick your brain into craving more sugar or because they
disrupt the good bacteria our guts need to keep us healthy. Maybe it’s both of
these things or something else. But people who guzzle Diet Coke and similar
beverages should realize the link to weight gain is there.
And
when it comes to the healthiest of Coca-Cola’s beverages, water, I’ve got news
for you: You can get it for free out of your tap. If you’d like, you can even
filter it and put it in a bottle. Because filtered tap
water’s all you’re getting when you buy Coca-Cola’s brand, Dasani. And at prices
equal to $8 per gallon, it’s more expensive than gasoline.
Another
claim? Now Coca-Cola sells its products in smaller, portion-controlled sizes.
Now you can drink a mere 7.5 oz of liquid sugar — only 90 calories. But far
more common are the 12 and 20-oz servings found in stores and vending machines,
and a “small” Coke at the movies can be 30 ounces. That little treat can pack
360 calories. A “large” soda at the movies now consists of 52 ounces of
carbonated sugar water, clocking in at more than 600 calories. That’s like
drinking a Coke for dinner.
Yes,
all calories count. We humans can only eat so much in a day. And if we stuff
our faces with liquid candy devoid of nutrients, then we eat less of the
nutritious foods our bodies need to function and stay healthy.
Additionally,
the impact of flooding our veins with a rush of sugar harms our
bodies in ways that
eating the same number of calories in a healthy meal doesn’t. In fact, a
12-ounce can of Coke or Pepsi contains more sugar than the American Heart
Association says one should consume in an entire day — almost ten teaspoons of
the sweet stuff.
I
don’t see how Coca Cola can legitimately address public health in a
constructive way while continuing to push such toxic products.
Here’s
one idea. Why doesn’t the soda giant stop splurging on this expensive and
hypocritical publicity campaign and instead donate it to a charity that would
help pay for the medical care now needed by its best customers because they
drank too much Coke?
That
would be but a small step in counteracting the harm they’ve done to our health.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is the author
of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do
to Fix It. OtherWords.org
