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was to get more exercise and get over a near
clinical obsession on the part of Americans to be
weight-conscious.
Coca-Cola, ever mindful of sustaining its appeal,
has adopted the similar health and exercise offensive
in other markets. In 2016, it was revealed that
$1.7m was expended by the company on fitness
groups and academics in Australia alone. Professor
Tim Olds of the University of South Australia saw no
problems in pocketing $400,000 from the company
for an international study on obesity. “I think,
frankly,” he said, “this is old-style superannuated
chardonnay socialism.”
Those from the food industry continue to draw
miffed distinctions between the effects of sugar, and
the impacts of other behaviours. “There’s no safe
level of smoking,” claimed Geoff Parker, CEO of the
Australian Beverages Council, “and so we refute any
sort of comparison between what’s happening with
reducing the prevalence of smoking with reducing
the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.”
No nanny-state will do for Parker – not even a
health conscious one. The sugar demons still have
the upper hand.
Dr Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth
Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He
lectures at RMIT University in Melbourne.
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