It should come as no surprise to anyone that a company that sells sugary soft drinks and does not want to stop selling those sugary drinks would have a vested interest in finding ways to promote the sale of those sugary drinks, right? What is surprising is that a company like Coca-Cola would be able to get seemingly reputable scientists to basically lie by promoting a message that says it’s a lack of exercise that is to blame for obesity and not sugary foods that are contributing to weight gain in the United States. And yet that’s exactly what Coca-Cola is being accused of doing in a report published in the peer-reviewed Public Health Nutrition journal, and the evidence against the company is quite compelling.
More from MamásLatinas: Aguas frescas that will help you lose weight
The report is a collaboration between researchers from the nonprofit US Right to Know, the University of Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and the University of Bocconi in Milan, Italy. The researchers looked into how Coca-Cola tried to influence research conducted by the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), which was founded in 2014 and claimed to be researching causes of obesity. What the new report found is rather upsetting. “This is a story about how Coke used public health academics to carry out classic tobacco tactics to protect its profits,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of US Right to Know. “It’s a low point in the history of public health, and a warning about the perils of accepting corporate funding for public health work.”
What exactly is Coca-Cola accused of doing?
Well, here’s the chisme in a nutshell: Coca-Cola gave at least $1.5 million to GEBN, which was around from 2014 to 2015. But both GEBN and Coca-Cola downplayed the contribution. This all came out because of emails that were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. “We are certainly going to have to disclose this [Coca-Cola funding] at some point. Our preference would be to have other funders on board first… Right now, we have two funders. Coca Cola and an anonymous individual donor… Does including the Universities as funders/supporters pass the red face test?” read one of the emails exchanged between GEBN and Coca-Cola representatives.
Why does it matter that Coca-Cola’s contributions were downplayed?
Well, it stands to reason that if a corporation is shelling out big bucks to fund a study, then it would want the results of that study to be favorable to its interests. This is why it’s important to be clear about who is funding a particular study. But when both a contributor and the group receiving the contribution are trying to obscure where funds are coming from, you gotta wonder what else they are obscuring.
What messaging did GEBN put out that was beneficial to Coca-Cola?
Remember that GEBN was supposed to be examining the causes of increased weight gain in the United States. What its researchers concluded was that to stay at a healthy weight, everyone should exercise more and not worry so much about cutting calories. “Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, ‘Oh they’re eating too much, eating too much, eating too much’ — blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on,” said Steven N. Blair, an exercise scientist and the group’s vice president. This despite much evidence that diet is more important than exercise when it comes to weight loss.
Why would Coca-Cola benefit from messaging that says exercise is more important than diet when it comes to weight issues?
In the United States, the consumption of sugary sodas has gone down by 25% in the last two decades. That decrease has a lot to do with sugary food and drinks being linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes and the fact that the World Health Organization, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the American Heart Association all recommend drinking less soda as a way to cut down on getting added sugars in our diets.
What’s the main takeaway of the report?
“Coca-Cola sought to obscure its relationship with researchers, minimize the public perception of its role and use these researchers to promote industry-friendly messaging. More robust approaches for managing conflicts of interest are needed to address diffuse and obscured patterns of industry influence,” is what the report concludes. In other words, we need more transparency when it comes to knowing who is funding research studies. And for members of the public, always check who funded a study to see if there could be a possible conflict of interest going on.
