Coca-Cola and obesity: study shows efforts to influence US Centers for Disease Control

Correspondence between the Coca-Cola Company and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed Coke’s efforts to influence the agency’s approach to tackling obesity, a new study has found.

Published in the Milbank Quarterly,1 the paper said that emails reveal Coke’s interest in “gaining access to CDC employees, to lobby policymakers, and to frame the obesity debate by shifting attention and blame away from sugar-sweetened beverages.”

The emails also demonstrate Coke’s efforts to “advance corporate objectives, rather than health, including to influence the World Health Organization,” says the study.