SugarScience Blog

Transnational corporations, obesity and planetary health

By Science Alert

The Lancet Commission on obesity calls for a reframed understanding of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change as a global syndemic of interconnected crises with common societal drivers. Within low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), research and advocacy on how transnational food and beverage corporations are impacting obesity and undernutrition is growing. These discussions should be expanded to include the industry's impacts on environment. Internal industry documents found in the University of California San Francisco's Food Industry Documents Library, in combination with publicly available ones, show that Coca-Cola is almost as concerned about its role in water scarcity as it is about obesity in LMICs, especially Colombia. Although keeping these two issues separate is in the company's interests, linking them is in the best interests of public health.

Transnational corporations, obesity and planetary health

Laura Schmidt, Melissa Mialon, Cristin Kearns, and Eric Crosbie
The Lancet (July, 2020)

https://thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30146-7/fulltext