The Center for Science in the Public Interest is an organization committed to health advocacy. Recently, they brought attention to the health effects of drinking soda and sugary drinks like Coca Cola. It did this by releasing a revised theme for a popular Coca Cola advertisement. It shared a re-written version of the song lyrics from the original. The goal was to critique the historical advertising strategy that Cola brings happiness and replace it about the true health implications tied to consuming the drink. Attached to this ad spoof is a social media hashtag called #ChangeTheTune to raise awareness on misleading ads.
Soft drinks and sweetened energy drinks are known to place American diets in jeopardy. Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health has a fact sheet that supports this claim. Soda is known to cause weight gain due to the high caloric value of the sugary drink. People usually don’t end up eating less food after drinking something so high in calories and therefore end up packing on pounds. This contributes to the country’s overall obesity rates.According to Harvard, on soda per day without a reduction of calories anywhere else could result in a five pound weight gain each year.
The JAMA Internal Medicine journal recently released data stating that of all individuals in America over the age of twenty-five, 67.6 million of them are obese. This information deserves a call to action. The fact that obesity can lead to chronic health issues should also be aggressively made clear. The Coca Cola ad spoof highlights those with hypertension, tooth decay, and diabetes singing about the soft drink from within a hospital exam room and not from a joyous hillside in the sun. These people want viewers to see that soda does not equal happiness.
To learn more about CSPI and their rendition of a popular Coca Cola ad, visit Deseret National News online here.
