Coke documents reveal push to sell to teens

WASHINGTON — Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympic Games since 1928, the longest-standing brand partner and one that has helped many National Olympic Committees send athletes to compete.

So says the beginning of a Coca-Cola internal document, a global request for proposal for a public-relations campaign for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. The budget? $1.5 million to $2.5 million. Among the target audience? Teens and moms.

A new paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health this week found that the

Coca-Cola Co.’s public relations goals included trying to shift teens’ sense of the health impacts of drinking sugary soda.

Obesity rates for children have tripled since the 1970s, an increase that puts children at greater risk of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. The 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found 18.5% of kids ages 2 to 19 were obese. In the United States, childhood obesity is estimated to cost $14 billion annually in direct health expenses.

Rates of obesity among adults are even worse: In 2007, 33.7% of American adults were obese. The most recent estimates approach 40%, according to the American Medical Association.

The paper, produced by

Australia’s

Deakin University and U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit consumer and public health group, includes another Coca-Cola document, a request for proposal for a campaign called “Movement Is Happiness.” Its public relations goals included “to increase Coke brand health scores with teens.”

Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, said after reviewing thousands of pages of requested documents from CocaCola, some themes emerge.

“One of these is Coca-Cola’s efforts to evade responsibility for the global obesity epidemic,” he said by phone. .”

Kent Landers, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president of public affairs, said these documents predate Coke’s 2016 commitment to discontinue funding physical activity programs.