Fox Business report with Shep Smith starts out discussing revelations that a “scientific” front group funded by Coca Cola has found that – surprise! – sugar is just fine for you and if you want to lose weight you should get your lazy ass off the couch and exercise.
Smith and fellow commentator Kennedy then engaged in a conversation about the “Merchants of Doubt” strategy, which they called an “underground marketing campaign” – pioneered by the tobacco companies. Smith comments, “This reminds me of what the tobacco companies did back in the day, and more recently what climate change deniers are doing as well…”
Jaw dropping beam of honesty from Fox land…
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Reaction from FBN host Kennedy
Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories.The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social media. To help the scientists get the word out, Coke has provided financial and logistical support to a new nonprofit organization called the Global Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise.
“Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, ‘Oh they’re eating too much, eating too much, eating too much’ — blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on,” the group’s vice president, Steven N. Blair, an exercise scientist, says in a recent video announcing the new organization. “And there’s really virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause.”
Health experts say this message is misleading and part of an effort by Coke to deflect criticism about the role sugary drinks have played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. They contend that the company is using the new group to convince the public that physical activity can offset a bad diet despite evidence that exercise has only minimal impact on weight compared with what people consume.
This clash over the science of obesity comes in a period of rising efforts to tax sugary drinks, remove them from schools and stop companies from marketing them to children. In the last two decades, consumption of full-calorie sodas by the average American has dropped by 25 percent.
Below, more on the “Merchants of Doubt” strategy:
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