Soda Politics
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Soda Politics Soda Politics Taking on Big Soda (and Winning) MARION NESTLE 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Marion Nestle 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nestle, Marion. Soda politics : taking on big soda (and winning) / Marion Nestle. p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-026343-0 (hardback : alk. paper) I. Title. [DNLM: 1. Carbonated Beverages. 2. Consumer Advocacy. 3. Dietary Sucrose—adverse effects. 4. Food Industry. 5. Marketing. 6. Politics. WA 695] TP630 663'.62—dc23 2015018561 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Foreword by Mark Bittman ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 What Is Soda? Why Advocacy Is Needed 1 Sodas: Inside Those Containers 11 2 Soda Drinkers: Facts and Figures 23 3 The Sugar(s) Problem: More Facts and Figures 37 Sodas and Health 4 Dietary Advice: Sugars and Sugary Drinks 53 5 The Health Issues: Obesity, Diabetes, and More 64 6 Advocacy: Soda-Free Teeth 77 The Soda Industry and How It Works 7 Meet Big Soda: An Overview 89 vi Contents 8 Obesity: Big Soda’s Response 102 9 Marketing Sugary Drinks: Seven Basic Principles 115 Targeting Children 10 Starting Early: Marketing to Infants, Children, and Teens 133 11 Advocacy: Stopping Soda Marketing to Kids 143 12 Advocacy: Getting Sodas Out of Schools 155 13 Advocacy: Getting Kids Involved 171 Targeting Minorities and the Poor 14 Marketing to African and Hispanic Americans: A Complicated Story 185 15 Selling to the Developing World 200 16 Advocacy: Excluding Sodas from SNAP 211 “Softball” Marketing Tactics: Recruiting Allies, Co-opting Critics 17 Marketing Corporate Social Responsibility 231 18 Investing in Sponsorships and Community Partnerships 245 19 Supporting Worthy Causes: Health Professionals and Research 252 20 Recruiting Public Health Leaders: Working from Within 268 More “Softball” Tactics: Mitigating Environmental Damage 21 Advocacy: Defending the Environment 279 22 Advocacy: Protecting Public Water Resources 295 Contents vii “Hardball” Tactics: Defending Turf, Attacking Critics 23 Lobbying, the Revolving Door, Campaign Contributions, and Lawsuits 315 24 Using Public Relations and Front Groups 328 Advocacy: Soda Caps, Taxes, and More 25 Advocacy: Capping Soda Portion Sizes 343 26 Advocacy: Taxing Sugary Drinks—Early Attempts 362 27 Advocacy: Taxing Sugary Drinks—Lessons Learned 372 28 Conclusion: Taking Action 387 Afterword by Neal Baer 404 Appendix 1: The Principal U.S. Groups Advocating for Healthier Beverage Choices 407 Appendix 2: National, State, and Local Campaigns to Reduce Soda Consumption: Selected U.S. Examples 409 Appendix 3: A Bibliographic Note on Sources 411 List of Tables 419 List of Figures 423 Acknowledgments 427 Notes 429 Index 485 Foreword Mark Bittman No one who knows the field would make a list of the five most important people in the fight for good food in the United States over the last couple of decades and leave off the name of Marion Nestle. This would probably be true even if she had retired after publishing her groundbreaking and still relevant work Food Politics. That book was a revelation to just about everyone who read it, a brilliant description of how Big Food methodically manipulates both individuals and our so-called representatives. As those of us who rely on or simply follow her know well, she did not stop there. At least two of the books she’s published in the last ten years have been equally important. (You can judge which two; all of her books are worth reading.) With Soda Politics, Marion sharpens her focus to lay bare the rapacious and despicable marketing practices used by the producers of soda (and, of course, the other sugar-sweetened beverages that are equally harmful) to push their worse-than-useless products on an increasingly obese country and, indeed, world. I’ll leave it to her to tell that story, which involves not only the twin tragedies of obesity and diabetes but also sad stories of water use, land grabs, and exploitation of the poor, undereducated, and illiterate, as well as the targeting of children. This last is ultra-important, because the “get ’em while they’re young” strategy works: as anyone over the age of thirty knows, it’s hard to change the style of eating you developed before you reached adolescence. And as long as pushers of soda and other junk food have their way with kids, we x Foreword have to look twenty years down the road to really begin to solve our dietary problems. The parallels between the marketing of cigarettes and that of soda have only recently become generally known. (Again, Marion has played a large part in this.) Cigarettes remain a threat, but the damage from sugar-sweetened beverages is among the great public health challenges of the twenty-first century. One can say with accuracy that the targeting of children by junk food marketers—and soda purveyors lead this pack—is among the greatest concerns of both public health advocates and those advocating good food. One great thing about Marion is that she is not a pure academic: she does not merely describe problems, although she does that with unerring accuracy and wit. To (partially) quote her, she does “everything possible to discourage the marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks.” To her, soda is not just an “interesting” marketing phenomenon; it’s a concrete threat to our public health, and she is here not only to describe that threat but to help us figure out how to combat it. She’s uniquely equipped to do so. There is not a better-educated (and I’m talking not only about school learning but also about daily reading, writing, and other ongoing hard work) and more principled person in her field. If the consumption of soda has declined in the last few years (it has), it’s in no small part thanks to her advocacy. If purveyors of sugar-sweetened beverages are looking at falling profits (and they are), it’s precisely because a movement has grown around principles that were largely first presented to the public by Marion. I personally am deeply in Marion Nestle’s debt; my guess is you’ll feel that way too by the time you finish reading this book. Abbreviations ABA American Beverage Association AHA American Heart Association ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council AND Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly American Dietetic Association) ASN American Society for Nutrition BIHW Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (of Coca-Cola) CARU Children’s Advertising Review Unit CCF Center for Consumer Freedom CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CORE Center for Organizational Research and Education CrA Corn Refiners of America CSPI Center for Science in the Public Interest CSR Corporate social responsibility DMFT Decayed, missing, or filled teeth (adults) dmft Decayed, missing, or filled teeth (children) DPS Dr Pepper Snapple EBT Electronic Benefit Transfer FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FCC Federal Communications Commission FDA Food and Drug Administration FRAC Food Research and Action Center FTC Federal Trade Commission GMA Grocery Manufacturers of America xii Abbreviations GMOs Genetically modified organisms HFCS High-fructose corn syrup IOM Institute of Medicine IWG Interagency Working Group LGBT Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAFLD Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease NANA National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity NHAnEs National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey PAHO Pan American Health Organization PPPs Public-private partnerships RWJF Robert Wood Johnson Foundation SEC U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission SSB Sugar-sweetened beverage SNA School Nutrition Association SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly the Food Stamp Program) USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture WHO World Health Organization WIC Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Wwf World Wildlife Fund Soda Politics Reference in this book to products and to websites and other potential sources of additional information does not mean that Oxford University Press endorses such products or the information or recommendations in such sources. Oxford University Press has no control over, and is not responsible for, any such product, website, or other source, or the content or policies of any such website or other source. Introduction I can’t remember when my literary agent, Lydia Wills, along with another of her clients, the physician, writer, and television producer Neal Baer, first suggested that I write a book about advocacy for reducing soda consumption, but I do remember my reaction: this was one terrific idea.