Health advocates ought to organize robust public health campaigns to teach the general public and policymakers concerning the risks of each sugary beverages and also the misleading trade company social responsibility campaigns that distract from their products' health risks, per US specialists writing during this week's PLoS drugs.
In a Policy Forum article, the authors (media and public health specialists from the Berkeley and Boston, USA) examined distinguished campaigns from trade leaders PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, that, per the authors, have embraced company social responsibility (CSR) with elaborate, expensive, and multinational campaigns.
The authors say that whereas soda corporations might not face the amount of social stigmatization or regulatory pressure that currently confronts massive Tobacco, concern over soda and also the obesity epidemic is growing. In response to health issues concerning their product, the authors argue that soda corporations have launched comprehensive CSR initiatives previous did tobacco corporations however that these campaigns echo the tobacco industry's use of CSR as a method to focus responsibility on customers instead of the corporation, bolster the companies' and products' popularity, and to forestall regulation.
However, in contrast to tobacco CSR campaigns, soda company CSR campaigns explicitly target kids and aim to extend sales.
The authors say: "It is obvious that the soda CSR campaigns reinforce the concept that obesity is caused by customers' "bad" behavior, diverting attention from soda's contribution to rising obesity rates."
They continue: "For example, CSR campaigns that embody the development and upgrading of parks for youth who are in danger for diet-related diseases keep the main focus on physical activity, instead of on unhealthful foods and drinks. Such ways redirect the responsibility for health outcomes from companies onto its customers, and externalize the negative effects of increased obesity to the general public."
The authors argue: "Emerging science on the addictiveness of sugar, particularly when combined with the known addictive properties of caffeine found in several sugary beverages, ought to any heighten awareness of the product's public health threat just like the understanding concerning the addictiveness of tobacco product."
They conclude: "Public health advocates should still monitor the CSR activities of soda corporations, and remind the general public and policymakers that, just like massive Tobacco, soda trade CSR aims to position the businesses, and their product, as socially acceptable instead of contributing to a social unwell."
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