Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: o many, a can of Coke is a refreshing treat or an unhealthy indulgence.For years, companies like Coca-Cola have shaped not just our diet and waistlines, but also science and society.Their influence is not limited to the United States.Alongside their products, Big Soda has exported their ideas of fitness and nutritional science abroad, including to China.How has Coca-Cola managed this, and what does this process say about the relationships between science, society, and the state under different political systems?These are some of the questions explored in the new book Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (University of Chicago Press, 2024).In this conversation, we discuss the book with its author, Susan Greenhalgh.Yangyang Cheng: Congratulations on the new book!Its title, 'Soda Science', is, I understand, short for 'soda-defence science', as in scientific research, findings, publicity, and policy in defence of carbonated sugary drinks and related products, incentivised by the very companies that manufacture these products-most notably, Coca-Cola.Instead of calling this kind of research propaganda or 'pseudoscience', you emphasise that it is important to take such corporate science seriously and to understand it rather than dismissing it outright.Can you explain why?Susan Greenhalgh: Let me start with a brief overview of the project.This book is driven by a concern about the hidden corporate corruption of science and the damage it can wreak on unwary societies like China's.In the story I tell, in the 1990s, once obesity rose to epidemic levels in the United States and public health experts began to finger sugary soda drinks as a main culprit, Big Food mobilised a handful of academic scientists to create what I call soda-defence science, aimed not at finding the best solution to a public health problem, but at protecting the profits of the soda industry and the junk food industry more generally.The soda scientists contended that the main solution to obesity was exercise, not dietary restraint, and that soda taxes were not necessary.Few experts agreed with those views.The first half of the book traces the creation and sudden demise of soda science in the United States during the years 1995 to 2015.The second half follows the American soda scientists to China, where they persuaded their Chinese counterparts to adopt their view of the best obesity science and worked with Chinese scientists to get it built into China's policies on obesity and chronic disease.The US soda industry's secret weapon was an industry-funded scientific non-profit called International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI).Based in Washington, DC, but with branches around the world, ILSI had Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (
Source: Made in China Journal
Authors: Yangyang Cheng, Susan Greenhalgh
Institution: Australian National University
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4410108888