Coca-Cola: A Healthy Snack?

Courtesy+of+http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com

AP

Courtesy of http://mashable.com

Nikhil Patolia, Photojournalist

Drinking Coke is now healthy for you, according to Coca-Cola.  As the beverage giant deals with declining sales in the United States, it is now coming out with the statement that Coke is a healthy snack.  This absurd statement is sourced through many fast-food restaurants changing their policies to remove soft-drinks from their menus.  By removing soft-drinks from their menus, the children are not accustomed to drinking these harmful beverages so often and therefore, do not develop the habit of drinking such beverages in the future.  This directly corresponds to declining sales for these soft-drink manufacturers since they are not only losing sales from not selling the drinks to children, but also future customers.

 

In order to save their image and their sales, Coca-Cola thought to counteract the problem by stating that it is a healthy snack.  Just by looking at the nutritional labels on the backs of the bottles, the average consumer can see for themselves that Coke is clearly not a healthy snack and should never be deemed as such.  “Even if Coca-Cola says that Coke is a healthy snack, I can see that it is not just through common sense”, says Danison Gamboa (10).  However, despite this fact, Coca-Cola is trying to eliminate this negative image and is even paying health and fitness experts to put more credibility into the statement.

 

Coca-Cola first tested this plan in the month of February.  February is an important month for those who enjoy watching their diets and staying healthy because it is the American Heart Month.  During this month, people create lists of heart-healthy foods that they suggest others eat in order to stay healthy.  Coca-Cola took this as an opportunity to promote their image and had several online writers include a small can of Coca-Cola within their shopping lists.  Many of those that wrote these articles promoting Coca-Cola simply stated that they could not recall if they had been paid by Coca-Cola to write the articles.  Clearly, with all the financial power that Coca-Cola has, it can push any message through the minds of its consumers.