WHEN SODA companies applaud the latest campaign to fight obesity, you know there is much more to the story.

In launching a new White House initiative against obesity called “Let’s Move,’’ First Lady Michelle Obama this week said, “Our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids don’t decide what’s served to them at school or whether there’s time for gym or recess. Our kids don’t choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions, and then to have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn.’’ Instead of taking these comments as fighting words, the obesity industry feigned being an amen choir.

PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association both applauded Obama. The Association promised more clear calorie information on bottles and cans. Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent said, “We are honored to play a role in this important action. We are going to be seen as part of the solution.’’

A key source of the obesity problem now claims to be part of the solution, in the spirit of beer companies and cigarette companies claiming marquee roles in solving underage drinking and smoking.

But the laudable intentions of one of the fittest First Families in the nation’s history are in danger of being drowned out by the laughter of trash food companies. The reason they can applaud the Obamas is because they have purchased so much silence everywhere else.

The American Beverage Association and Coke entities spent $31 million in lobbying last year, much of it to shoot down taxes on sugary beverages at federal and state levels. The association had a $2 million ad campaign against taxes, which public health experts calculate would cut consumption and contribute revenues to public health programs to repair the damage done to the nation’s health by soda.

A UCLA study last year found that 43 percent of the additional calories Americans have been consuming since the 1970s come from soda, making it the top source of added sugar in the national diet. Whereas the recommended amount of sugar per person is 5-to-9 teaspoons a day, one 20-ounce soda contains 17 teaspoons. Last fall, President Obama said soda taxes are “an idea we should be exploring. There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda.’’

But the soda companies’ cash and clout ended the talk about federal taxes. The Los Angeles Times reported last week on how pressure and cash from the nation’s trash food and fast food giants and subsidiary companies have influenced Latino groups, including doctors, and African American politicians – including Representative John Lewis, who represents the Atlanta district where Coke is headquartered – to question food taxes as a burden on the poor (as if dying from diabetes and heart disease isn’t worse). Coke itself likens the taxes to a Communist control of grocery carts.

Another reason the soda companies cynically applaud Michelle Obama is because they are replacing any calorie conscious Americans with unsuspecting consumers in developing countries. Coke has a stated goal of doubling its servings to 3 billion a day by 2020. Coke’s unit case volume in the last quarter was up 29 percent in China and 20 percent in India, the latter of which is experiencing one of the biggest explosions of diabetes in the world. Pepsi claimed 32 percent beverage growth in India in 2009 and double-digit gains in snack volume in India, Pakistan, Egypt and Thailand.

This of course should not stop Michelle Obama from trying to raise some awareness about obesity and get whatever voluntary industry pledges she can to better label soda and increase school-lunch nutrition. But under current politics, those efforts pale against the profits that are turning America’s obesity crisis into a global public health disaster.

The “Let’s Move’’ campaign has the potential to become a movement, but only when the trash food and sugar sugar lobby can no longer throw its weight around Capitol Hill, applauding Michelle Obama’s efforts while weighing down our children with more pounds today and more disease tomorrow.

Tags: American Beverage Association, Coca-Cola, Michelle Obama, PepsiCo, President Barack Obama

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 1:55 am and is filed under Liberal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.