Nixing Soft Drinks in Schools Across the Developing World

Back in 2007, Coca-Cola declared that the global discussion about obesity was the company's "Achilles heel," one that "dilute[d]" the company's marketing.

Fast forward three years, and in the most visible place soft drink companies have managed to thoroughly penetrate -- schools -- both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have jointly thrown in the towel.

In an unprecedented move this afternoon, PepsiCo announced that the company would pull full-calorie, sweetened drinks from schools in more than 200 countries by 2012. Meanwhile earlier this month, Coca-Cola agreed not to sell its drinks in primary schools around the world, unless specifically requested by parents or districts. These moves follow a similar voluntary announcement by both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola (the world's first- and second-largest soft drink makers) that covered U.S. schools in 2006. (Hey, it only took them four years to decide that students deserved the same treatment no matter their origin -- that's a better track record than many U.S. policymakers.)

Obesity isn't just a friendlier-sounding synonym for fat. The condition of obesity, which often sets in during childhood, raises an individual's risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and strokes. In many developing countries, the rise in obesity is outpacing that of the industrialized world, and soft drinks are a major contributor behind the trend. So congratulations to the  World Heart Federation and the architects and activists behind the Global Dump Soft Drinks campaign, which inspired both companies' moves.

The agreement doesn't ban fruit juices (Tropicana, for eg., will still be allowed), which also have a high caloric content, nor will it get rid of low-cal drinks that are still fairly sugar-laden, like Gatorade. It's also unclear, as Dr. Kelly Brownell (who directs Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity) notes, whether this change in policy will significantly reduce consumption levels across the developing world. (The company hasn't given figures on its school sales around the world, but says they aren't a major portion of its sales.) And fighting child obesity means more than discouraging consumption of actively harmful drinks and food -- it also means better nutrition and efforts to increase activity among youth.

But a move like this would be a major one for a multinational company of any stature, let alone one with as wide a reach as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola both command. It's also a welcome change from the tactics of another oft-villainized industry -- tobacco -- whose efforts to recruit young smokers in poor countries to replace the ones they're losing in the developed world have proven far less tractable.

Photo Credit: Lel4nd