Two days ago an op-ed by Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-cola appeared in the Wall Street Journal. In it he not only -- as expected -- argues against the proposed tax on sugared beverages, he argues that soft drinks like Coke play little to no role in the obesity epidemic.
In doing so he has crossed the line from merely being an advocate for his business into distorting the truth to continue to harm consumers for the sake of profits. As a representative of Coca-cola he has now crossed that line which the tobacco manufacturers long ago crossed; knowing full well the damage his products are doing, and lying to avoid any possible damage to his bottom line.
As outlined in David Kessler's fantastic the End of Overeating, Coca-cola and other soft drink companies were instrumental in creating the "Super Size". In the 80's consumers were thought to be saturated in their soda consumption. Sales were beginning to stagnate since consumers were already drinking soda with just about every meal. So how do you get people to buy more when they're already having it at every meal? Buy more per meal. The beverage companies pushed the fast food companies to create Super Sizes to sell more of their syrup. And it worked, soda consumption shot up as ordering the Super Size became the norm. Then later they got rid of the name Super Size, but the current Large sizes are still those enormous portions invented in the 80's by the beverage companies.
Syrup is what their product really is. We think of it as the end product we actually drink, a combination of the syrup and carbonated water. But really, Coca-cola's product is a sugar syrup. If you think of that sticky, gooey, unappetizing syrup when you consider buying a Coke, it suddenly becomes a lot less appetizing and you realize what you really want is water.
And now here's Coca-cola's CEO, playing the role of Philip-Morris or some other tobacco company, saying "There's no proof we're at fault!" To be sure, they aren't the sole cause, just like cigarettes aren't the sole cause of lung cancer. But they are a huge factor.
Coca-cola had a chance here to do the right thing. To undo what they did in the 80's; to push the fast food companies to get rid of their current Large sizes, and return to smaller, more reasonable portions. They had a chance to propose a discount on 0 calorie sodas instead of taxing the caloric ones, they had a chance to do something positive. Instead they chose to say "Everything is fine! Nothing to see here! Don't look behind the curtain!"
By doing so they've caused me to commit myself to never buying another Coca-cola product. I will also encourage everyone I know to stop buying their products, and explain to them as I hopefully have here, how Coca-cola has crossed the line into deliberately attempting to further the obesity epidemic by lying about their own culpability.