An Editorial in this week's Lancet criticises a celebrity-endorsed magazine advert, published in Australia, which branded notions that Coca-Cola could make children fat or rot their teeth as "myths".
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has since ordered Coca-Cola to run "corrective advertisements" in Australian newspapers. The Editorial says: "Both the original advert and the corrective one repeat the same mantra: yes, Coca-Cola contains calories and yes, it contains 'food acid', but it is the consumer's responsibility to regulate its consumption."
Furthermore, the Editorial discusses how blame-shifting, celebrity endorsement, and disputing links between a product and ill health are some of the many similarities that exist between food-industry tactics and those of the tobacco industry. It says: "Other parallels include marketing heavily to young people, stealth marketing such as product placements in films, and promotion of so-called healthier versions of products." It also refers to legal action taken by a group of residents in California against Coca-Cola for alleged mismarketing of VitaminWater — a high-cost, high-sugar "health" drink which, the label claims, can "enable the body to exert physical power by contributing to the structural integrity of the musculoskeletal system".
The Editorial concludes: "The industry should stop marketing nutrition-free products to children, and stop using celebrities to endorse them. It should declare funding for researchers, professional organisations, and consumer groups, and desist from stealth marketing. For if the industry continues on its present trajectory, the public's opinion of Big Food is going to follow that of Big Tobacco and decay as quickly as a Coca-Cola-drinker's teeth."
Lancet Press Office T) +44 (0)20 7424 4949 E) pressoffice@lancet.com
For full Editorial, see: http://press.thelancet.com/editorials1104.pdf
The Lancet