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She Took On Colombia's Soda Industry. Then She Was Silenced.
It began with menacing phone calls, strange malfunctions of the office computers, and men in parked cars photographing the entrance to the small consumer advocacy group's offices. Then at dusk one day last December, Dr. Esperanza Cerón, the head of the organization, said she noticed two strange men on motorcycles trailing her Chevy sedan as she headed home from work. She tried to lose them in Bogotá's rush-hour traffic, but they edged up to her car and pounded on the windows. "If you don't keep your mouth shut," one man shouted, she recalled in a recent interview, "you know what the consequences will be."
The episode, which Dr. Cerón reported to federal investigators, was reminiscent of the intimidation often used against those who challenged the drug cartels that once dominated Colombia. But the narcotics trade was not the target of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues. Their work had upset a different multibillion-dollar industry: the makers of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
Their organization, Educar Consumidores, was the most visible proponent of a proposed 20 percent tax on sugary drinks that was heading for a vote that month in Colombia's Legislature. The group had raised money, rallied allies to the cause and produced a provocative television ad that warned consumers how sugar-laden beverages can lead to obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes. The backlash was fierce. A Colombian government agency, responding to a complaint by the nation's leading soda company that called the ad misleading, ordered it off the air. Then the agency went further: It prohibited Dr. Cerón and her colleagues from publicly discussing the health risks of sugar, under penalty of a $250,000 fine.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 17 2017, @06:00PM (4 children)
The thinking on exercise bothers me. When did "exercise" become something that you had to work into your schedule? Used to be exercise was only something that those weird rich liberals from California did, while the rest of us labored on the farm. Now somehow this "getting your exercise" by doing frivolous and otherwise useless things, and even buying expensive and bulky items such as the exercise bike, has become mainstream, at least in the US. It's a triumph of commercialism.
I get most of my exercise doing useful things like housework. It's not as intense as a hard workout at a gym, but it sure saves a lot of money. Drives me crazy that the same family members who want a gym membership also want maid service.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 17 2017, @06:09PM
I get most of my exercise doing useful things like housework.
Not everyone has a big house needing that much housework. And housework isn't really aerobic exercise, nor particularly strenuous. Proper exercise needs to get your heartbeat to an elevated level for an extended period of time to be effective.
The thinking on exercise bothers me. When did "exercise" become something that you had to work into your schedule? Used to be... It's a triumph of commercialism.
No, it's a triumph of automobile and suburban culture. Go to New York City sometime and spend a couple weeks there (it'll cost you; hotels are expensive). People there don't need that much exercise, because they're walking everywhere all the time, and consequently, you don't see any obese people there, at least in Manhattan. People need exercise now because they don't live on farms, and the extent of their physical activity is walking from the parking lot into a store. (And even here, they drive in circles to get the closest parking space they can.)
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday November 17 2017, @06:35PM
You answered your own question. No one is laboring on farms unless they are low wage migrant workers. We created a more sedentary lifestyle thanks to the automobile, automation, offshoring, and desk jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @07:38PM (1 child)
> buying expensive and bulky items such as the exercise bike
I have exercise bikes, but didn't have to buy them -- just kept my eyes open on trash day. Exercise equipment is thrown out on a regular basis in the suburbs. Must be the stuff of forgotten dreams (dreams of a flat stomach!)
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday November 17 2017, @08:26PM
I think they wind up realizing they don't need as many coat racks taking up space in their homes.
Seriously though, most of the home exercise equipment industry is a scam. The only people who buy that shit are obese women. I have met only a handful of people who actually use their home equipment on a regular basis. Two are bodybuilders who have a simple weight set (one has a treadmill for winter running.) The other is my friend's mother who had a nordic track until it broke, then switched to a treadmill and a small weight set. Those people were serious about their exercise routines.