February 7th, 2005

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The Long View
3 Comments »

Coke and Killing Your Children

Regular readers will recall that I’m off the Coke. That’s going pretty well–it’s been seven days and, aside from a couple of headaches, I’ve suffered no ill effects. Plus, I’m sleeping better.

Coincidentally, I happened upon this compelling argument against giving children sugary drinks:

Coke is designed to make it easy to drink a lot. The bubbles and the flavoring agents
are carefully designed to make you want to drink more. Marketers at Pepsi talk about ’slam’ (the ability to drink a whole bottle at once, without stopping).

Best quote: “I’ve never seen a fat kid who didn’t drink sugared beverages”. It’s pretty standard Fast Food Nation stuff, but easily consumed in nine pages.

On a related note, Richard is starting a pledge drive and going off the Coke for the (admittedly longer) month of March.

Comments: 3 Responses so far

sxKitten
February 7th, 2005
4:37 pm

OK, but have you ever seen a skinny kid who didn’t drink sugared beverages?

I think it’s more fairly a question of quantity, rather than an absolute relationship between pop and obesity.

[Reply]

Andrea
February 7th, 2005
6:25 pm

What happens if people switch to diet pop, decaf coffee/tea, or other 1-calorie drinks? A lot of people don’t like the taste of water. Would it be easier to shift their habits, rather than forcing them to go cold turkey?

I’m always shocked when I see people feeding their kids pop. When I was growing up, we only got pop when we had a babysitter (very, very rare). Back then, a large bottle of pop came held about 750 ml. Three kids and a babysitter would share that amount. (And the evil babysitters would always make sure they ended up with half the bottle.) So I never had more than 150 ml of Coke till I was in high school…when a part-time job and a pop machine altered my access.

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Paolo
February 8th, 2005
12:35 pm

My friend drinks nothing but Coke. I’m not kidding!

Both my SO (significant other) and I are good cooks. So when he comes over one of us whips up some amazing dish. No matter how many different beverages we offer, he always ducks out the door to go and pick up some Coke. Not RC, Pepsi or anything else. It’s gotta be Coke. And you know what? He’s fat. He knows he’s fat. He’s not happy he’s fat and yet, he drinks one large bottle of Coke a day. That’s right, every day—at least!

It’s pretty clear that he’s addicted, which makes me wonder what the HELL is in that stuff.

[Reply]

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