Why is the Massachusetts Health Council Helping Coca-Cola in its Marketing of Soda?

This coming Tuesday, the Massachusetts Health Council will be hosting its annual " Dining with the Stars "awards gala. One organization that should not be getting any public health awards is the Massachusetts Health Council itself. While the Council ' s mission is to promote " prevention and wellness, " it is actually helping the soda industry to market the very products which are contributing significantly to the nation ' s obesity epidemic.The Rest of the StoryIf you look at the list of sponsors of the Massachusetts Health Council ' s awards gala, you ' ll find a long list of health organizations, including my own Boston University School of Public Health, the BU School of Medicine, the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. But if you look a little more carefully, you ' ll see that one of the " health organizations " that is sponsoring the awards gala is the Coca-Cola Company.It was just this past Monday that Dan Aaron and I published anarticle explaining how the soda companies are using corporate sponsorship as a tool to improve their public image, divert attention from the role of their products in the obesity epidemic, hide the fact that they are lobbying vigorously against public health measures designed to fight obesity, and ultimately - to improve their bottom line: namely, the sale of Coke, their signature brand. We identified 96 different health and medical organiza...

Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - October 13, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs