Over the past several years, public school districts have made deals with the likes of Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola to keep their school cafeterias operating in the black and to give school principals some extra cash to pay for things like band uniforms. But as one scientific report after another reveals the growing health risks of obesity—especially among children—parents, doctors and… return to article
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Reader Comments (16)Page 1 of 1 pagesApparently, softdrinks contribute to obesity because they are loaded with high fructose corn syrup, not sugar, and the body doesn’t digest this sugar substitute the same way. This became the prevalent choice of sweetners by the soft drink giants a decade or 2 ago because it is sooo much cheaper. Profits win over health concerns again.
Posted by pick of the litter on Jun 16, 2005 at 12:19 PM I heard the back end of a report on Air America’s Ring of Fire (Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio) a month or so ago, that Coca-Cola has participated in the assassination of labor union organizers in bottling plants in Latin America.
I’ll see if I can find more information.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 16, 2005 at 2:58 PM From: http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html
Boycott Coca Cola
The International Boycott of Coca Cola started on the 22 July 2003. It was called by SINALTRAINAL (Colombian Food and Drinks Workers’ Union). It is supported by the World Social Forum, and by the CUT and the CGTD (principle trade union federations in Colombia), and numerous social organisations around the world.
Coca Cola stand accused of complicity in the assassination of 8 Sinaltrainal trade union leaders in Colombia since 1990. Many other leaders have been imprisoned, tortured, forcibly displaced and exiled. Of course, Coca Cola deny any responsibility for the murders, pointing out that 100s of union leaders are killed every year in Colombia. However, many of Sinaltrainal’s victims were killed inside Coca Cola plants while negotiating collective agreements. Coca Cola management were reported in the national press as meeting and contracting members of the AUC death squads to “sort out their labour problems”.
So why the boycott? Sinaltrainal have exhausted all the legal avenues in Colombia, where their applications to the courts have been manipulated and rejected. However, in the USA, in a court case brought in solidarity with Sinaltrainal by the United Steel Workers Union, a judge has ruled that there is enough evidence for a case to continue against Coca Cola’s Colombian subsidiaries. However, the multinational refuses to cooperate with the union, and the violent repression continues. Coca Cola are also suing the union for libel. The boycott and international campaign are powerful but dangerous weapons, the workers in Colombia know that they will bear the brunt of the repression for highlighting these facts. They deserve your solidarity.
“We ask Coca Cola to stop killing, and you to stop drinking Coke”
Carlos Julia, SinaltrainalFor more information, see:
www.killercoke.org; www.sinaltrainal.org; www.cokewatch.orgAlso, read SINALTRAINAL’S declaration on the boycott. Download the declaration.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 16, 2005 at 3:07 PM Problems like this coke issue, take a serious
back seat to Child/Women abuse and abductions,
Out of control immigration legal and illegal,
Americas best export = our jobs to third world
slave lords and lastly the very real threat of
china, it is real and we are soon going to find out how real it is. If we do not start waking up to the fact that china is a far greater threat to the “American way of life” than the soviet union ever was or dreamed to be, than we better start brushing up on our chinese.I think it is time that media outlets such as this one start addressing real problems than this
type of garbage. Use common sense, too much of anything is no good, especially for kids ! and anyone that does not get this by now and needs this article as a guidence has real problems.Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Thursday, June 16, 2005A high-ranking Chinese military officer said an “unbearable cost” would be inflicted on the United States if it intervened in a conflict over Taiwan.
The PLA officer, who was not identified by name, told the PRC-owned Wen Wei Po newspaper in Hong Kong that President Bush’s recent comments on Taiwan amounted to interference in China’s internal affairs.
“China is not Iraq,” said the officer who is involved in Taiwan issues. “If another country takes action and gets involved in disputes across the Taiwan Strait, there is no doubt that the Chinese troops will make them pay an unbearable cost for such attempts.”
The officer noted a recent Chinese defense white paper that said China opposes Taiwan independence and opposes any country “that sells weapons to Taiwan and forms a military alliance with Taiwan in any form.”“We will never allow anybody to separate Taiwan from China in any form,” the white paper states, explicitly criticizing the United States for what it claims are U.S. violations of the three communiqués that govern U.S.-China ties.
STOP BUYING CHINESE GOODS ! EVEN IF IT COSTS
YOU A FEW BUCKS MORE ! YOU HAVE ENOUGH CHANGE IN YOUR CARS ASHTRAY TO PAY FOR A MONTHS SALARY OF SOMEONE WHO STICHES YOUR NIKES TOGETHER AND MOST LIKELY A TEENAGER. AND NIKE STILL CHARGES 70.00 BUCKS FOR A PAIR ! WE DO NOT SEE A SAVINGS, SHAREHOLDER, UPPER MGMT SUCK IN ALL THE MONEY !STOP BUYING CHINESE PERIOD !
East-Asia-Intel, www.eas-asia-intel.com
Posted by Flash on Jun 16, 2005 at 9:05 PM Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell vetoed the bill. Bought up politicians keep public schools safe for fast-food, poor nutrition and obesity.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Jun 17, 2005 at 4:43 AM 100% fruit juice can also be unhealthy because it’s tainted with pesticides, fungicides and antibiotics (yes that’s right antibiotics). Thank you friendly whorehouses, the FDA and USDA, headed by Bush appointed industry pimps, bought and paid for by the chemical and drug industries they are supposed to regulate.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 17, 2005 at 9:58 AM This story is a load of crap.
More busybodies trying to interfere
with our life choices.
The sources cited by lefty are the
usual commie crapola, no credibility.
Air America is running deeply in the red,
listeners are leaving in droves.
If you have a weight problem, don’t
drink Pepsi but if not just be sensible.
Good news flash------Congress has cut PBS’s
funding by 75% HOORAY !
Kill Big Bird.
Posted by Matt Dillon on Jun 17, 2005 at 12:31 PM As a recent reader of In These Times, I was disappointed to come across this article. Is cola really the culprit behind America’s obesity problems? Doubtful. This sounds like the “McDonalds wrecked my health and made me fat” argument. When will America start taking responsibility, as individuals, for the decisions it makes? If parents are really concerned for their children’s health then they need to help them make the proper nutritional decisions long before they get to junior high. It’s somewhat insulting to compare a sugary beverage to a product that kills millions every year thru direct and indirect contact. (Big Tobacco) Think about it.
Posted by Brandi on Jun 17, 2005 at 3:16 PM The actual death toll is in the hundreds of
thousands, not millions and deaths via second
hand smoke are greatly exaggerated if not totally
hyped. But the real point is that everyone sentient since the late 50s has been aware of the
dangers of tobacco and the government has no
right to get involved in people’s personal choices.
They can always argue that fatty foods cause
heart attacks, which are the Number 1 killer.
So, Brandi, your responsibility logic has to
apply to tobacco too.
Posted by Billy Calumet on Jun 17, 2005 at 3:40 PM I first became aware of this pervasion of Coca Cola in our public schools when a friend, faculty member of a high school in my former hometown, took me on a tour of their newly built, 70 Million dollar facility. What first caught my attention was the official school sign at the entrance: it was designed not with the school colors as one might expect, but instead featured the red and white Coke logo incorporated along with the school name.
“What’s up with the coke logo?” I asked. “The community spends seventy million for a new school but still has to resort to brand labeling?”
“It’s part of the contract with Coca Cola” my friend explained - and I really didn’t care to know anymore about it. I just wondered if the school’s biggest athletic rival across town now had a similar sign in front of their school building, too, only with a blue Pepsi logo emblazoned on it.
Since then I’ve also heard of McDonalds fast food moving into some school lunchrooms. I think it’s disgusting and obviously teaches bad nutritional habits while impacting mostly on the poorest working class families whose children aren’t getting much of anything better at home, either in the way of a balanced diet or nutritional guidance.
I don’t think the above article even begins to expose all the problems of soda pop schools or the
reason schools are having to resort to these types of [url="http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/?msource=USTACK&tr=y&auid= =705234"
]trade-offs[/url] in the first place.Besides diet, how about discussing what impact these soda drinks have on the teeth of these school children and their parents ability to provide adequate dental care?
Posted by Tim Christopher on Jun 17, 2005 at 4:40 PM I completely agree as far as accountability. My mistake that tobacco/second hand smoke has ONLY killed hundreds of thousands and not millions. However, no one forces Coca-Cola down my throat unless you want to argue from the perspective of advertising. For me to avoid cigarette smoke, I basically have to stay home.
The same goes for McDonald’s. Good parenting comes from your parent(s) not your government. Children can be taught to make decisions for themselves by having good role models. If you don’t want your child eating McDonald’s and swilling Cokes/Pepsis, make your child lunch the night before and pack juice.
I’m sorry but Mr.Bush and the rest of Washington are, in fact, leaving our children behind. It has become necessary for schools to become part of the corporate machine in order to to have basic and supplementary needs met.
My simple statement is this: Don’t attack a corporation whose number one goal it is to make money. It’s the government who is responsible to the people.
Posted by Brandi on Jun 17, 2005 at 5:11 PM I’m sorry Brandi
This government isn’t responsible to anyone
Posted by R.B. on Jun 17, 2005 at 6:13 PM I believe that this is off topic but.. Is that a joke? Because if not, then who IS this government responsible to? If only in concept then, the government is not responsible for serving the will of the people? Again, even as a concept. I’m not saying that this is it’s current practice. Also, saying that the government is responsible in no way is to condone government involvement in private affairs. I made the comment about government in as far as the government continues to cut programs educational and otherwise that will benefit children from the outset thereby creating a need for the public education system to appeal to other means of financial support. If not corporations, (in other words you are AGAINST private funding of public institutions)then you are responsible (or I believe you should be) for ponying up the money thru taxes.
Posted by Brandi on Jun 17, 2005 at 6:35 PM The comment written by Flash is something a public relation republican corporate greedy pig that works for Coke would most likely write.
Children need to be left alone from corporations, parents and caregivers/teachers should know better then to give any child liquid candy!
Posted by L-M on Jun 17, 2005 at 11:20 PM Jack(ass) Barnes a/k/a Billy Calumet aka Matt Dillon (giddyup Matt), is the house troll and brainwashed conservative. You know - idiots and crooks.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 18, 2005 at 3:06 PM Something even more insidious arises from soft drinks in schools.The revenue generated from the machines,at one point introduced to create extra funds for the school,becomes part of the school budget.The Board of Education and the local politicians see that extra money coming in and decide that not as much money needs to be alloted for schools next year.
Example:for the slower right-wingers.
2004 school budget:$50 million+$2 million soda revenues.
2005 school budget:$48 million+$2 million soda revenues.Why spend unnecessary money when kids can pay the diiference by drinking lots of soda?
The taxpayers’ money is diverted,usually in corporate welfare,and the community is left hanging.
Two questions:
1)For all of the cuts in the budget republicans have made,where has all that"saved" money gone?
2)If “liberals"want people to be dependent on “big government”,on what do conservatives want people to be dependent?
Answer to both:big business.
BTW:Jack,give up.
Matt Dillon?Is that a reference to the actor who starred in teen movies such as"My Bodyguard","Little Darlings"and later,more mature fare such as “To Die For”, or is it a “Gunsmoke"reference?Please try harder next time,if you’re capable.If not,take my advice and just use LOUIS FRIEND!
Posted by wwoods on Jun 20, 2005 at 6:38 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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