NEW YORK -- The New York City Health Department, locked in a court fight with an industry group that includes Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. over a sugary soda ban, is now going after sports drinks, teas and energy drinks that it says can be just as deadly, reported Bloomberg.
New TV ads and subway placards to debut June 3 flash pictures of fruit-flavored drinks containing added sugar, saying the healthier-sounding choices can cause obesity and diabetes. One of the ads depicts a patient with amputated toes from diabetes, an overweight man slugging a neon-blue sports drink and a surgeon picking at a diseased heart with tweezers.
"Non-soda sugary drinks have been marketed as being healthier, with references to fruit and antioxidants, vitamins and energy," New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley told the news agency. "We're trying to warn them that these drinks can have as much or more sugar and calories as soda because we still have a major epidemic of obesity."
Beverage makers have come under increasing pressure in recent years as officials try to curb high obesity rates in the U.S. by slowing consumption of sugary soft drinks. New York's newest ads broaden the battle lines to non-carbonated and energy drinks, which have been bright spots for the industry in the midst of an eight-year decline in soda sales.
"Once again, the New York City Health Department is oversimplifying the complex set of factors behind obesity," Chris Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for the American Beverage Association, told Bloomberg. "Selectively picking out common grocery items like sugar-sweetened beverages as a cause of obesity is misleading. The public does not believe that solutions to obesity are as simplistic as a ban on the size of just one item that people consume, nor should they."
Farley said he considers drinks with more than 25 calories per eight ounces to be too sugary. While a 20-oz. Coca-Cola has 240 calories, the same size Minute Maid lemonade with 3% lemon juice content has 260 calories, Farley said.
He noted that a 16-oz. orange-mango drink, with 30% juice content and 200% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins A and D can be misleading. It also lists high-fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient after water and contains 230 calories. A 20-oz. Red Bull energy drink that "vitalizes body and mind" contains 275 calories, he said.
The expanded campaign comes before showdown between beverage makers and the city in a New York state appellate court. The city has appealed a permanent injunction issued March 11 to stop a health-department law pushed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that would cap the size of sugary soft drinks sold in restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums and arenas at 16 ounces (473 milliliters) a cup. Oral arguments will be heard June 11, according to the city and the beverage association.
New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling in Manhattan said the law was improperly enacted and arbitrary in its effects after affected industry groups called it "unprecedented interference." The judge also held the law violated the separation of powers because the city council, not the mayor, should promulgate such measures.
Farley said the new ads are not timed with the appeal, adding that the city is "optimistic" the ban will be upheld. Gindlesperger said the ABA was confident it would prevail.
The city's new noncarbonated drink offensive, which runs through June, includes another TV ad that targets fruit-flavored kids drinks. The ads suggest water, seltzer, unsweetened tea, fat-free milk and fresh fruit as alternatives. The ads are part of the city's four-year "Pouring on the Pounds" campaign that has compared sweetened soft drinks to packets of sugar and globs of fat.
New York City has seen a drop in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption during its campaign, Farley said. The percentage of adults who said they drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverage a day declined from almost 36% in 2007 to almost 30% in 2011, according to a city tracking poll. Of youths surveyed in a similar poll, that percentage declined to almost 21% in 2011 from about 28% in 2005, said the report.
The beverage industry fought back a year ago with a series of subway ads of its own touting lower-calorie options and package sizes as progress against obesity. The American Beverage Association called the city's ads at the time discriminatory for singling out a single product.
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