Obesity is the new frontier
Getting your timing right is everything in politics. So why did the issue of obesity dominate the UK’s media during the last week in January? Was it because the Public Health Minister, Anna Soubry, had persuaded eight new companies to sign up to the UK government’s Calorie Reduction Pledge, with leading soft drinks brands Lucozade and Ribena joining the likes of Britvic, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo in reducing the amount of sugar and calories in some of their products?
No, it was because she had said something outrageously insulting at the UK’s Food and Drink Federation’s ‘Delivering Healthy Growth’ stakeholder event on 22 January 2013. She reportedly began her address with some remarks about fat people she had seen when out and about. "When I walk around my constituency, you can almost tell somebody’s background by their weight," she said. "Obviously not everybody who is overweight comes from a deprived background but that is where the propensity lies." She added that when she was at school, the poorer children were "skinny runts" – but that now the opposite was true.
Of course, the timing of her address was crucial. Over in Davos, where 2,500 top leaders from government and business had gathered to make connections and lobby the movers and shakers at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), one of the issues discussed was obesity.
Obesity is far from a personal problem. It imposes costs on both public and private sectors and is a drag on economic growth.
However, the business leaders meeting in Davos couldn’t agree on what they can or should do to address it.
One look at the list of the strategic partners of the WEF shows how many vested interests are at play – food and drink companies are blamed for feeding the crisis, while drug manufacturers profit from soaring rates of diabetes.
The Coca-Cola Company, whose CEO Muhtar Kent was one of the co-chairs of this year’s Davos gathering, took the opportunity of heightened media interest to launch a commercial on U.S. cable television that seeks to highlight the company’s efforts in fighting obesity.
In response to activists shouting that better-for-you options are not enough and only if policy makers deny consumers unhealthy choices will progress be made, the commercial notes that Coca-Cola sells about 180 low and no-calorie drinks and reminds viewers "if you eat and drink more calories than you burn off, you’ll gain weight".
Obviously, The Coca-Cola Company hopes to pre-empt government regulation by showing its social conscience face.
At Davos, The Coca-Cola Company also wanted to underline its commitment to fight HIV/AIDS in the Third World when it put on an invitation-only reception with the actress Charlize Theron, a U.N. messenger of peace and founder of an African outreach foundation, as the star attraction. As the Sunday Times newspaper’s journalist, who was invited, mischievously reported back: “The [Coca-Cola’s] party featured a piece of Davos-style irony: canapés with what appeared to be a gold leaf on top.”
What is there to say to this? At least gold is not fattening.
Perhaps in an effort not to be outdone by The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo’s CEO Indra Nooyi hosted an invitation-only nightcap for Derek Jeter, the captain of the New York Yankees, who I am told is a professional player of a kind of rounders.
