Report: Coca-Cola documents show efforts to sell to teens

Goals included ‘to increase Coke brand health scores.’

A new paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health this week cites internal documents that show the Coca-Cola Co.’s public relations goals included trying to shift teens’ sense of the health impacts of drinking sugary soda.

The paper was produced by Australia’s Deakin University and U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit consumer and public health group. Among the Coca-Cola documents it cites is a 2013 global request for proposal for a campaign called “Movement Is Happiness.” Its public relations goals included “to increase Coke brand health scores with teens” and to “cement credibility in the health and well-being space.”

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.

Countries such as Mexico, Chile and Brazil have pushed back against sugary sodas legislatively, enacting sugary drink taxes and limiting marketing and advertising directly to kids.

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

“One of these is Coca-Cola’s efforts to evade responsibility for the global obesity epidemic,” he said by phone. “Even though the health problems are quite severe in the U.S., we live under de facto corporate control; the food industry is incredibly powerful in the U.S. What’s insidious here is a health campaign that is using tobacco’s tactics, promoting alternative science in a way that advances the notion that sugary sodas aren’t really so bad for people’s health.”

Ruskin says Coca-Cola is intentionally targeting a vulnerable population.

Kent Landers, senior vice president of public affairs and communications at the CocaCola Company, says these internal documents predate Coke’s 2016 commitment to discontinue funding physical activity programs. He says Coca-Cola has repositioned itself as a “total beverage company” with products that include water, juice, juice drinks, tea, coffee, sports drinks and energy drinks as well as sodas.

“At Coca-Cola, we recognize that too much sugar isn’t good for anyone,” Landers said. “That’s why, around the world, we are reducing the amount of sugar in our products and taking other steps to help people reduce their sugar intake. In fact, in 20172018, we eliminated 425,000 tons of sugar from our global portfolio of products through innovations such as new recipes, smaller packs and wider availability of low- and zerosugar products.”