Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (And Winning) / Edition 1

by Marion Nestle

Overview

Sodas are astonishing products. Little more than flavored sugar-water, these drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers—principally Coca-Cola and PepsiCo—into a multibillion-dollar industry with global recognition, distribution, and political power. Billed as "refreshing," "tasty," "crisp," and "the real thing," sodas also happen to be so well established to contribute to poor dental hygiene, higher calorie intake, obesity, and type-2 diabetes that the first line of defense against any of these conditions is to simply stop drinking them. Habitually drinking large volumes of soda not only harms individual health, but also burdens societies with runaway healthcare costs.

So how did products containing absurdly inexpensive ingredients become multibillion dollar industries and international brand icons, while also having a devastating impact on public health?

In Soda Politics, the 2016 James Beard Award for Writing & Literature Winner, Dr. Marion Nestle answers this question by detailing all of the ways that the soft drink industry works overtime to make drinking soda as common and accepted as drinking water, for adults and children. Dr. Nestle, a renowned food and nutrition policy expert and public health advocate, shows how sodas are principally miracles of advertising; Coca-Cola and PepsiCo spend billions of dollars each year to promote their sale to children, minorities, and low-income populations, in developing as well as industrialized nations. And once they have stimulated that demand, they leave no stone unturned to protect profits. That includes lobbying to prevent any measures that would discourage soda sales, strategically donating money to health organizations and researchers who can make the science about sodas appear confusing, and engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to create goodwill and silence critics. Soda Politics follows the money trail wherever it leads, revealing how hard Big Soda works to sell as much of their products as possible to an increasingly obese world.

But Soda Politics does more than just diagnose a problem—it encourages readers to help find solutions. From Berkeley to Mexico City and beyond, advocates are successfully countering the relentless marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks. And their actions are having an impact—for all of the hardball and softball tactics the soft drink industry employs to maintain the status quo, soda consumption has been flat or falling for years. Health advocacy campaigns are now the single greatest threat to soda companies' profits. Soda Politics provides readers with the tools they need to keep up pressure on Big Soda in order to build healthier and more sustainable food systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190263430
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/05/2015
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Dr. Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and Professor of Sociology at New York University. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. She has been a member of the FDA Food Advisory Committee and Science Board, the USDA/DHHS Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and American Cancer Society committees that issue dietary guidelines for cancer prevention. She is also the author of Eat Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics (Rodale, 2013), Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics (Berkeley, 2012), Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (Berkeley, 2010), Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (Berkeley, 2007), which won awards from the Association for American Publishers and the James Beard Foundation; and What to Eat (North Point, 2006), which was named one of Amazon's top ten books of 2006. You can read her blog at www.foodpolitics.com.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Mark Bittman

Introduction

What is soda and why should anyone care?
1) Sodas: the inside story
2) Soda drinkers: facts and figures
3) The sugar(s) problem

Sodas and health
4) Dietary advice: sugars and sugary drinks
5) The health issues: obesity, diabetes, and more
6) Advocating health: soda-free teeth

The soda industry and how it works
7) Meet Big Soda: an overview
8) Obesity: Big Soda's response
9) Marketing sugary drinks: four basic principles

Targeting children
10) Starting early: Marketing to infants, children, and teens
11) Advocating health: Ending soda marketing to kids
12) Advocating health: Getting sodas out of schools
13) Advocating health: Getting kids involved

Targeting minorities and the poor
14) Marketing to African- and Hispanic-Americans: a complicated story
15) Selling to the developing world
16) Advocating health: excluding sodas from SNAP

Playing softball: Recruiting allies, coopting critics
17) "Softball" marketing strategies: Corporate Social Responsibility
18) Investing in communities
19) Supporting worthy causes: health professionals and research
20) Recruiting public health leaders

Playing softball: Mitigating soda-induced environmental damage
21) Advocating sustainability: defending the environment
22) Advocating sustainability: protecting public water resources

Playing hardball: defending turf, attacking critics
23) Lobbying, campaign contributions, and the revolving door
24) Using public relations and front groups

Taking action: soda caps and taxes
25) Advocating health: capping soda portion sizes
26) Advocating health: taxing sugary drinks
27) Advocating for health and the environment: take action

Afterword, by Neal Baer

Appendix I: The principal US groups advocating for healthier beverage choices
Appendix II: National, state, and local campaigns to reduce soda consumption: selected examples
Selected bibliography
List of tables and figures
Reference notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

Big Soda knows what it's doing. Fortunately, so does Marion Nestle…her expansive, superbly researched new book, Soda Politics…isn't so much a narrative as a well-organized barrage of facts…They come off the page like jabs in a sustained pummeling lasting more than 400 pages. Even if Nestle is only half right, it's still a total knockout…The book's style is what you might call earnest nutritional advocate…If you're looking for a gripping page turner or weight-loss epiphanies, you've come to the wrong author. While some might see this as a weakness, I consider it a strength. There is no sense that Nestle is profiting from alarm, peddling false enlightenment or whipping up our mistrust of food companies. A good scientist, she worships at the altar of evidence, and her skepticism extends to both sides of the aisle.

The New York Times Book Review - Mark Schatzker

"For decades, soda companies have amassed fortunes off drinks that are making us sick. It took someone like Marion Nestle to cut through the spin and uncover the high cost of cheap sodas." —Robert Kenner, Director/Producer, Food Inc. and Merchants of Doubt

"No book in history has so completely laid bare the soda scourge that touches every corner of the world. Marion Nestle shows how this happened, its impact on human health and well-being, who the players are, and, most importantly, what might be done. This is the right book at the right time." —Dr. Kelly Brownell, Dean, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

"An outstanding manual for health educators, activists, and anyone seeking information about the soda industry and its impact on health." - Library Journal

"If you have been exhausted by the flip-flop of Brexit politics in recent weeks, Soda Politics offers a refreshing break - a great read for dietitians." -NHDmag

From the Publisher

★ 08/01/2015
Nestle (nutrition, New York Univ.) once again exposes the dark side of the food business. As in her 2007 Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, the author examines the soft drink industry, demonstrating how products that are basically flavored water with added sugar contribute to obesity, type-2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. She discusses the composition and production of soda, the adverse effects of excess sugar consumption, and product marketing. The companies' targeting of children, low-income, and minority communities; lobbying of Congress to prevent legislation that would impact profits; funding of research to produce results that obscure the facts about soda; and donations to health organizations and charities in order to be portrayed as socially responsible corporations make it difficult for citizens to act. Nestle reveals what can be done and how to do it, providing relevant data, analyzing that information, and illustrating its difficulties. She then advocates for smaller portions, taxing sugary drinks, and excluding soda from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and provides examples of successful campaigns, a list of groups advocating for healthy beverage choices, and extensive notes. VERDICT An outstanding manual for health educators, activists, and anyone seeking information about the soda industry and its impact on health.—Barbara Bibel, formerly Oakland P.L.

Library Journal

2015-07-01
Nestle (Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health/New York Univ.; Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, 2012, etc.) calls for a campaign to regulate and tax the multibillion-dollar soda industry modeled on the successful anti-smoking campaign.There is a proven correlation between the rises in obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay and the increasing amounts of sweetened sodas consumed in the United States and globally. We must address this health hazard, writes the author, by doing "everything possible to discourage the marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks." As Nestle implores, "everyone interested in health should be taking a closer look at who, when, where, and to whom soda companies are marketing their products." The current marketing juggernaut is a result of a series of long-running, major campaigns by the significant players in the industry. For example, "in the early 1990s," writes the author, "Coke and Pepsi began to offer large sums to colleges and universities for the right to sell only their company's products on campuses." At the end of the decade, similar arrangements were made with "high schools, middle, and even elementary schools." Efforts by municipal and federal governments to rein in the industry—e.g., in New York City, a subway-poster campaign coupled with a proposed soda tax and limit on portion size—have been consistently watered down or defeated by the industry, which uses "marketing, lobbying, partnerships, and philanthropy to promote sales, regardless of how their product might affect health." Sponsorships of sports events, celebrity endorsements, and high-profile disaster-relief efforts also foster brand allegiance and maintain popular support for brands such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Nestle reports that health advocates have achieved some success in reducing soda consumption in the U.S., but much remains to be done. In 2014, Coca-Cola diversified into "highly caffeinated energy drinks recently associated with the deaths of several young people." A hard-hitting, exceedingly well-documented call for action.

Kirkus Reviews