Big corporations have recently made a push to assure you that they are concerned about your wellbeing, even if they are partially to blame for certain wellness damage. Coca-Cola, for example, has now launched an anti-obesity advertising campaign ‘advertising its concern and understanding of the role it is playing’ in your weight gain, says David Levitsky, a professor of Nutritional Sciences and Psychology at Cornell University who specializes in obesity, weight loss and how people inform their food choices. However, according to Levitsky, this is little more than clever hypocrisy.
‘It is ironic that Coca-Cola is attempting to polish its image as America’s most ‘refreshing’ drink,’ says Levitsky. ‘The irony comes from the fact that it is these two factors – a product containing calories and the mechanism of selling the product, advertising – that is at the core of the epidemic of obesity.’
According to the psychology expert, when you look further into this advert, you can see that there is a ‘fundamental paradox’ which actually stops you from losing weight at all. ‘What Coke is doing with these ads is telling us that by offering a greater variety of lower calorie drinks they are allowing us to choose to consume few calories. If we don’t choose to drink them and, instead, select the old fashion higher-calorie drinks, then our weight problem is our fault, not theirs.’ However, because Coca-Cola is one of many food companies, and always needs to increase profits for their shareholders, the only way they can truly earn any more money is by making you consume more calories. Levitsky says ‘what Coca-Cola and the merchandisers in the food industry know is that offering a greater variety of foods will only increase our total calorie consumption and will make us, and their wallets, grow a little fatter.’
Therefore, the only remedy to the obesity epidemic, according to Levitsky, is the simple truth that you already know, but perhaps less easy than you want to hear: ‘The only way to reverse the epidemic of obesity,’ Levitsky concludes, ‘is to announce something that the large food companies don’t want to hear: We have to eat less’.
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