Bearing With Coke: Soft Drinks, Hard Choices
(By David Katz,
Huffington Post, 26 January 2013)
Responding to our justifiably increasing
preoccupation with widespread obesity, the Coca-Cola Company has released a
masterful television ad on the subject. They characterize their
own efforts, and invite us all to "come together" to combat this
scourge. The whole "come together" concept receives great emphasis,
with evocative images from the (presumably) good old days of: "I'd like to
buy the world a Coke..." Predictably, the
collective response of my friends and colleagues in public health has been less
than warm and bubbly. Sensing a blend of propaganda, evasion, hypocrisy, and
desperation in Coke's efforts, my clan has largely reacted with their own blend
of dismissal, derision, and disgust. In essence, they have invited us all to
lose this lunch, and roll our eyes. I
confess, I am sorely tempted to join them. But before we can lose our lunch, we
are perhaps obligated to chew on it. And before rolling our eyes, we may need
to read the writing on the wall -- fine print, and all.
Before that
chewing and reading begins, I do want to insert a disclaimer. I am the furthest
thing from a food industry apologist. I have devoted years of my life to the
development of programs for children and adults alike that reveal the all-too-often
lamentable truth about the so-called "food" supply. At every
opportunity, I have highlighted the fact that "betcha' can't eat just
one" was far more than a clever ad campaign; it was a threat to public
health, backed up -- at least in the case of Kraft -- by nutritional biochemists and neuroscientists
using functional MRI scans to determine how to maximize the number of calories
it takes for us to feel full. And I have noted repeatedly, as I will continue
to do, that as we got fat and our kids got diabetes -- somebody was chuckling
about it all the way to the bank.
Nor do I have
even a little love for the Coca-Cola Company. I consider their flagship
offering a chemistry experiment in a cup. I haven't had a soda in some 35 years
since I first saw that light. Coca-Cola has systematically opposed public health
campaigns to reduce soda consumption, deflected criticism, denied epidemiologic
truths, and distorted their own contributions to epidemic obesity. I have -- at
least in moments of private rage -- considered them an evil empire. Regarding
my brief encounter with their CEO, I can only say I felt the dark side of the
Force was strong with him. And when it
comes to polished and compelling ads that obscure any semblance of truth,
Coca-Cola has an impressive track record. They have given us polar bears enjoying Coke as they frolic in their winter
wonderland.
This is wrong in
so many ways it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, polar bears don't
drink soda. For another, that's not likely to help them much -- because we are blithely destroying their winter wonderland. And guess what?
Concocting chemical potions in factories to drink out of plastic bottles when a
glass of water would do nicely is part of the reason -- as such industrial
activity contributes to global warming and the melting of Arctic ice on which
the livelihood of real polar bears depends. So, no -- Coke is not offering
polar bears a drink. It's part of the reason they may have nothing left to eat.
But, of course, only part of a much bigger reason.
Reacting to
Coke's misleading depiction of polar bears, the Center for Science in the
Public Interest engaged musician Jason Mraz, to give us the
"real" bears. I
fully support this campaign to show what might happen if polar bears actually
did drink Coke. But of course, these aren't "real" bears -- because
as noted, polar bears don't drink soda. So, the "real" issue is that
we may not be smarter than the average bear after all. Bears are still eating
and drinking what bears should eat and drink -- to the extent we aren't making
it impossible for them. We, on the other hand, have been drinking Coca-Cola out
of ever-larger containers. This just
isn't about bears and the choices they make. It's about us, and the choices we
make. And we apparently have some hard ones. We have water, but choose to drink
Coke. We have broccoli, but choose to eat bologna. There are no bears involved.
We have met the enemy -- and it is us. Yes,
we are also the victim. Yes, the food industry really has manipulated us with
foods engineered to specifications born of functional MRI
scans. But come on: Does
anyone think Coke is good for them? Does anyone not living under a rock think
you can drink a gallon of that stuff daily and not suffer any consequences? Is
there really anyone left who has not heard the rumors about sugar? And does anyone bemoaning the unbearable
(pun intended) burden of a soda tax truly not know where to find a water
fountain?
Coke is quite
right about one thing: We are all in this together. Consider that when McDonald's -- another good
contender for the food industry's evil empire award -- gave us McLean Deluxe, we didn't buy it. The product expired not for want
of supply, but for want of demand. Folks, that's not McDonalds' problem. It's
yours, and mine. It's our kids' problem.
Similarly, remember Alpha-Bits cereal? If you haven't seen it lately,
here's why -- courtesy of some inside information. Post reduced both the salt
and sugar content, actually making the product more nutritious -- and people
stopped buying it. Sales plummeted from about $80 million a year, to $10
million. Most product reformulations
that allegedly give us better nutrition are actually lateral moves -- fixing
one thing, breaking another. Salt is reduced, but sugar is increased. Sugar is
reduced, but trans fat is increased -- and so on. I have an intimate view of
all this, courtesy of my work with the NuVal program, which has established a detailed
nutrient database for over 100,000 foods it has scored. All too often, banner
ads implying better nutrition are entirely misleading. Low-fat peanut butter is
substantially less nutritious than regular. Multigrain breads may or may not be
whole grain.
But on those rare
occasions when the food industry actually gives us better products, we don't buy them. Which
brings us back to Coke: What, exactly, do we want from them? As I see it, against a backdrop of a growing
burden of national and global chronic disease in which they are complicit, Coke
has four options. They can (1) ignore the public health problem, and keep on keeping
on; (2) acknowledge the public health problem, but say it's not their problem
-- and keep on keeping on; (3) confess their corporate sins and absolve
themselves with ceremonial suicide; or (4) change. Choices one and two have pretty much run
their course. Shareholders are unlikely to bless option three. Which leaves us
with option four: change. Change their product formulations. Change their
inventory. And change their messaging. Stop talking about frolicking polar
bears, and start talking about obesity. And while we have cause to be
suspicious about Coca-Cola's motives, that's just what the new ad appears to be
doing.
Yes, they sell us
chemistry experiments in a cup. Yes, they help us become fat diabetics. But
they are also a large company, employing a lot of people. If we simply want to
drive a stake through their corporate heart, the result would be a lot of
newly-unemployed people, still prone to obesity and diabetes while drinking
Pepsi, or Mountain Dew, or Dr. Pepper, while perusing the want ads. And yes, the new ad about obesity is only in
response to mounting pressure from a concerned public, and restive federal
authorities. But is it bad or surprising that supply-side changes are
responsive to a changing demand? The business of business, after all, is
business -- and keeping the customer satisfied.
If we want truly meaningful changes in the quality of our food and
drink, we will in fact require changes in both supply and demand. It won't help
if they build it, and we don't come. There are ways to propagate a shared taste for change, and such a course might allow for
substantial improvements in the public health without blowing up the Fortune
500.
Admittedly, the
new Coke ads addressing obesity are slick. Stunningly slick. In other words,
they are just plain good -- working over the chords of emotional response
exactly as intended. A testimony to what really deep pockets and top
advertising talent can do. This could be just another reason to hate Coke, I
suppose. But on the other
hand, the simpler times when Coke was an innocent pleasure are not a Madison
Avenue fabrication; they actually happened. We baby-boomers lived through them.
There was a time before ultra-uber-gulps and widespread childhood obesity, and
soda seemed an innocuous pleasure -- whether or not it ever really was. If that
has changed over time, then so must we -- and so must Coca-Cola. What would such change look like? Probably
something like the new ad.
As a closing
aside, I attended the meeting of my local school district wellness committee
this week, as they took on the task of complying with Connecticut nutrition
standards. The gentleman who runs the high school store noted that by complying
with the new regulations, he would lose business to the array of fast-food
outlets accessible to the students just across a parking lot. And, I suspect
he's exactly right. I share my
colleagues' visceral opposition to everything Coke. But I think we may be
letting our abdominal viscera get the better of vital organs situated higher
up. Soft drinks do exist; they are big business. Doing something about that
involves hard choices. Change --
incremental change -- is the most promising and plausible of them. So we have
to allow for it if what we want is progress. If we won't accept change without
calling it hypocrisy, then we don't really want progress. We want revenge.
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