Coca-Cola CEO Denies That Soft Drinks Are Linked To Obesity - Calls For PR Counteroffensive

[hatrack]

Las Vegas — Coca-Cola Co.’s top executive urged the beverage industry Monday to step up its fight against claims that it bears much of the blame for the nation’s obesity problem, especially since the souring economy and health concerns over carbonated beverages could shrink U.S. drink sales this year.

In one of his first major speeches since taking the top job at the world’s biggest beverage company in July, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent told industry leaders gathered here that it was “absolutely imperative” for them to work together to “return responsible discourse back into the obesity debate. “People need to understand that obesity is not about a beverage or a candy bar or a restaurant meal or a Play Station game or about working longer hours,” Kent said in prepared remarks for his keynote address at the InterBev 2008 conference. “It’s a systematic lifestyle issue that we must address individually and collectively as a society.”

Kent pointed out in his speech that calories in non-alcoholic drinks have declined by nearly 25 percent in the past decade. Not coincidentally, his speech was preceded by a pitch from the Corn Refiners Association, which has launched a major campaign to downplay health concerns surrounding the high-fructose corn syrup used in many soft drinks.

Some critics were quick to take issue with Kent’s comments. “It sounds like the CEO of Coke is sticking his head in the sand by denying that obesity is related to soda pop,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Washington, D.C-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime soft drink critic. “(Non-diet) soda pop isn’t the only cause of obesity, but it’s a very significant contributor.”

EDIT

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/business/coke/stories/2008/10/21/coke_ceo_obesity.html

[Avalux]

1. How about everyone stop drinking soda and Kent can collect unemployment?

Soda is not healthy; consuming noncaloric soda (with artificial sweeters) is worse than high fructose corn syrup soda.

Idiot.

[mr clean]

2. Just like smoking cigarette's doesn't cause lung cancer.

n/t

[Phred42]

3. It's not the Soda that make you fat - it's the Fructose

in other words - it's not guns that kill people it's the bullets......

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Maybe they can contract that PR firm who worked on the "Water isn't Wet" campaign n/t

[XemaSab]

5. I'm fat and I drink soda about once every two months

I sort of agree that obesity is about a lifestyle, and not a product. :shrug:

[Nihil]

6. And if you drank it daily, you would be fatter ...

... unless you did something to counteract the additional effect of
incorporating more soda into your lifestyle.

Part of the "lifestyle issue" is that some people's lifestyle includes
drinking loads of that stuff every day - they've not only swallowed the
basically unhealthy drink but they've swallowed the advertising campaigns
hook, line & sinker so that they think that their unhealthy lifestyle is
somehow "cool" or "hip".

So what do Coca-cola & the other HFCS drinks people do?
Put out more advertising to convince those already addicted to an unhealthy
lifestyle that their products *aren't* unhealthy after all, thus reinforcing
the unhealthy lifestyle, the initial advertising campaigns and their profits.
Hmmm ... wonder if those last two words have anything to do with it ...?

For me, if I drank more beer, I would be (even) fatter than I am. It was
a conscious decision to cut down as I found that over the last few years,
it just goes straight to my waistline and stays there. It affects my
lifestyle somewhat and, frustratingly, most of the non-alcoholic (I daren't
drink wine when driving) alternatives when I'm playing are fruit juice
drinks containing HFCS! There are times when you feel you just can't win ...
:shrug: