Big Soda Reeks of Big Tobacco
Posted by
Elliot
Haspel on October 16, 2014 · Flag
I have
watched relatives — long-time smokers — die of cancer. I have seen the parents
of my young students struggling with Type II diabetes, unable to provide the
support they wanted as they battled the disease.
The
tobacco wars of the last half of the 20th century began before I was born, but
I can’t help noticing the similarities with the debate over soda and
Proposition E. I’m glad to be able to speak up this time, and have a voice in
this battle.
Tobacco
companies denied the link between nicotine and lung cancer, yet they knew full
well what they were doing. Like Big Tobacco, Big Soda denies their product’s
impact, in this case the direct link between sugary drinks and Type II diabetes
(and the strong correlational link to obesity); they, too, know full well what
they are doing.
The
American Beverage Association (ABA) said in a statement in 2004, “it is
scientifically indefensible to blame any one food or beverage for increasing
the risk of Type II diabetes, a disease which is commonly known to have multiple
causes and risk factors.” Similarly, the American Tobacco Company said in a
statement in 1953, “Undoubtedly lung cancer is now more common than it was one
or two decades ago; also undoubtedly cigarette smoking has increased, as have
other habits and conditions of modern life. But that does not prove that
cigarette smoking produces or contributes to lung cancer.” The echoes are
eerie.
In his
book Salt, Sugar, Fat, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss
details how major food and beverage companies have been aware of the science
behind the impact of sugar for decades, just as the tobacco companies were
aware of the science behind the impact of nicotine when they were spinning
their deceptions.
Tobacco
companies formed fake “local” coalitions to fight cigarette taxes (they still
do today). In Massachusetts during a heated 1992 cigarette tax campaign, it was
the “Committee Against Unfair Taxes.” Sound familiar to the ABA’s “Stop Unfair
Beverage Taxes / Coalition for an Affordable City”? As if Coke, Pepsi, et. al.
have the best interests of San Francisco residents in mind more than the
doctors, nurses, teachers, clergy, researchers, elected officials and community
leaders; all of whom are saying with one loud voice: Yes on E.
Tobacco
companies said that cigarette taxes were regressive; in fact, this continues to
be one of their favorite tactics – repeat this word as many times as possible,
and hope that voters don’t notice that their lower-income friends are getting
deadly, expensive cancer at brutally higher rates. Similarly, the ABA pretends
to care about low-income people, hoping San Francisco voters don’t notice that
maps of highest soda consumption and highest rates of Type II diabetes are one
and the same, concentrated in the lowest-income parts of the city; hoping that
we don’t notice that paying $10,000 a year for diabetes treatment is a burden
perhaps more worrisome than paying two pennies for an ounce of soda.
It’s
worth noting that as cigarette taxes have risen and education has increased,
smoking rates in the U.S. have plummeted from nearly half of all adults smoking
in the 1950s, to less than 20% today. Smoking-related illnesses and deaths have
happily cratered as well.
Whereas
the occasional soda is fine (I drink them once in a while myself), soda
consumed at current rates is toxic, and the methods the soda companies use to
promote such overconsumption in youth is sickening. Big Soda and Big Tobacco –
these are groups of companies that are using manipulative tactics to peddle a
product that they know is causing harm, and in the case of Big Soda, one that
they know is especially harming children, whose brains do not tell them they
are getting full when they're drinking soda.
Big
Tobacco spent nearly $60 million on advertising aimed at youth in 1998, the
year before they were court ordered to stop doing so directly. Meanwhile,
according to the Federal Trade Commission, Big Soda spends nearly $500 million
on advertising aimed at children. Big Soda is shelling out half a billion a
year to make money by making our kids sick.
Two final
numbers to illustrate why I’m willing to suit up for this bout, and why I wish
I had been able to get involved back when tobacco was the topic of the day:
Proposition E will raise about $54 million dollars in legally dedicated funds
that will go to childhood nutrition and health programs. Meanwhile, the
American Beverage Association is poised to spend upwards of $10 million to
convince San Francisco that they are the good guys.
Just like
Big Tobacco.
Elliot
Haspel is a local education advocate and a former public school teacher. He
lives in the Lower Haight neighborhood.
homepage
Yes
on E Choose Health SF San Francisco Soda Tax San Francisco Beverage Tax Sugary Beverage Tax
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Paul Murphy commented seconds ago · Flag
I want to thank all advocates , who continue to
inspire and engage , citizens within the health community. Our children deserve
a healthier food environment and the , so called, inactivity crisis is in need
of a makeover.
Time to sever the link between inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic?
By Travis Saunders, MSc, CEP
Posted: February 3, 2011
X
Hello there! If you enjoy the content on Obesity Panacea, consider subscribing for future posts via email or RSS feed. Also, don’t forget to like us on Facebook!
10
Two weeks ago our colleague Dr Arya Sharma published a very interesting post discussing the latest reports on the extremely low levels of physical activity in the Canadian population (sometimes referred to as the “inactivity crisis”). The gist of the reports are that exceedingly few Canadians (7% of kids and 15% of adults) are meeting physical activity guidelines. But Dr Sharma’s argument is that although most age groups showed a relationship between BMI and physical activity level (e.g. lean boys tended to be more active than obese boys), the real take-home message is that physical activity levels are low in all groups, not just among those who are overweight and obese. From Dr Sharma (it’s a great post, so please do visit his site to read the whole piece):
…if we convert the rather modest differences in MVPA levels taking into account the increased effort required to move higher body weights, we would find almost no difference in actual calories spent in activities to account for any difference in body weights.Thus, to me at least, these data pretty much blow to pieces the widely held bias that overweight and obesity can be largely explained by lack of activity or that overweight and obese individuals are less physically active (read “lazy”) than “normal” weight individuals.
…
In light of these data and the tremendous negative emotional and physical impact of weight bias, I stongly believe that discussing inactivity (or exercise) in the context of obesity is not only obfuscating the issues but also a major distraction from addressing the real causes of the problem.
This should in no way imply that the shockingly low activity levels of ALL Canadians (young and old, male and female, slender and obese) should not be cause for alarm given the innumerable health benefits of physical activity and the increasingly recognised health risks associated with sedentariness. In addition, these comments should also in no way imply that increasing physical activity and sensible exercise “prescriptions” are not important prevention or treatment strategies for weight management.
It is, however, hightime to reframe the discussion of inactivity and sedentariness as a discussion about fitness and health risk in general rather than as a discussion on obesity.
Continuing to link the necessary discussion about inactivity to the problem of obesity is not only scientifically unfounded but, by dangerously and unfairly reinforcing stereotypes (not reflected in the actual data), may well do more harm than good when it comes to tackling both the epidemic of obesity and the epidemic of sedentariness.
Now this is not to say that reduced physical activity levels don’t play a role in the obesity epidemic, nor that they are not an important player in weight maintenance. Again, from Dr Sharma (this time in the comments section):
…absolutely, it is well possible that the overall reduction in physical activity may play some role in the right shift in the bell curve of weight distributions, and getting everyone moving more may eventually lead to a left shift of this distribution (although I am not holding my breath on this one).My issues are not with whether or not activity is important for health or to reduce the risk of obesity.
My issues are solely with the misrepresentation of these findings as reinforcing the stereotype that overweight and obese people are less physically active, when in fact they may well be expending more effort (and calories) than their “normal” weight counterparts.
All of this brings us back to our recent discussion of problematic obesity-related public service announcements. Because, as you might expect, it’s commonplace for public health messages to make an implicit or explicit link between the inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic. It’s hard not to – obesity is negatively associated with physical activity, and if you’re trying to make a case for why people should be more active, it’s a pretty easy way to get their attention.
Even ParticipACTION, Canada’s standard-bearer for physical activity, has gone down this route on occasion. For example, their video titled “There is a crisis in Canada” (unfortunately I can’t embed it, but it’s the 4th video down on this page) starts with various shots of headless obese individuals, while the voice-over states “There is a crisis in Canada. A crisis of epic proportions. Canadians are simply not moving enough. Nearly half of the adults in this country are overweight or obese.” Now those statements are undoubtedly true, but putting them together like that seems to imply that obese individuals are obese simply because they don’t move enough, and that moving more would solve the problem.
Time to sever the link between inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic?
By Travis Saunders, MSc, CEP
Posted: February 3, 2011
X
Hello there! If you enjoy the content on Obesity Panacea, consider subscribing for future posts via email or RSS feed. Also, don’t forget to like us on Facebook!
10
Two weeks ago our colleague Dr Arya Sharma published a very interesting post discussing the latest reports on the extremely low levels of physical activity in the Canadian population (sometimes referred to as the “inactivity crisis”). The gist of the reports are that exceedingly few Canadians (7% of kids and 15% of adults) are meeting physical activity guidelines. But Dr Sharma’s argument is that although most age groups showed a relationship between BMI and physical activity level (e.g. lean boys tended to be more active than obese boys), the real take-home message is that physical activity levels are low in all groups, not just among those who are overweight and obese. From Dr Sharma (it’s a great post, so please do visit his site to read the whole piece):
…if we convert the rather modest differences in MVPA levels taking into account the increased effort required to move higher body weights, we would find almost no difference in actual calories spent in activities to account for any difference in body weights.Thus, to me at least, these data pretty much blow to pieces the widely held bias that overweight and obesity can be largely explained by lack of activity or that overweight and obese individuals are less physically active (read “lazy”) than “normal” weight individuals.
…
In light of these data and the tremendous negative emotional and physical impact of weight bias, I stongly believe that discussing inactivity (or exercise) in the context of obesity is not only obfuscating the issues but also a major distraction from addressing the real causes of the problem.
This should in no way imply that the shockingly low activity levels of ALL Canadians (young and old, male and female, slender and obese) should not be cause for alarm given the innumerable health benefits of physical activity and the increasingly recognised health risks associated with sedentariness. In addition, these comments should also in no way imply that increasing physical activity and sensible exercise “prescriptions” are not important prevention or treatment strategies for weight management.
It is, however, hightime to reframe the discussion of inactivity and sedentariness as a discussion about fitness and health risk in general rather than as a discussion on obesity.
Continuing to link the necessary discussion about inactivity to the problem of obesity is not only scientifically unfounded but, by dangerously and unfairly reinforcing stereotypes (not reflected in the actual data), may well do more harm than good when it comes to tackling both the epidemic of obesity and the epidemic of sedentariness.
Now this is not to say that reduced physical activity levels don’t play a role in the obesity epidemic, nor that they are not an important player in weight maintenance. Again, from Dr Sharma (this time in the comments section):
…absolutely, it is well possible that the overall reduction in physical activity may play some role in the right shift in the bell curve of weight distributions, and getting everyone moving more may eventually lead to a left shift of this distribution (although I am not holding my breath on this one).My issues are not with whether or not activity is important for health or to reduce the risk of obesity.
My issues are solely with the misrepresentation of these findings as reinforcing the stereotype that overweight and obese people are less physically active, when in fact they may well be expending more effort (and calories) than their “normal” weight counterparts.
All of this brings us back to our recent discussion of problematic obesity-related public service announcements. Because, as you might expect, it’s commonplace for public health messages to make an implicit or explicit link between the inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic. It’s hard not to – obesity is negatively associated with physical activity, and if you’re trying to make a case for why people should be more active, it’s a pretty easy way to get their attention.
Even ParticipACTION, Canada’s standard-bearer for physical activity, has gone down this route on occasion. For example, their video titled “There is a crisis in Canada” (unfortunately I can’t embed it, but it’s the 4th video down on this page) starts with various shots of headless obese individuals, while the voice-over states “There is a crisis in Canada. A crisis of epic proportions. Canadians are simply not moving enough. Nearly half of the adults in this country are overweight or obese.” Now those statements are undoubtedly true, but putting them together like that seems to imply that obese individuals are obese simply because they don’t move enough, and that moving more would solve the problem.
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