The Latest Junk Food Gizmos

Kids using a Freestyle "fountain system"

Yesterday's RPK post looks at McDonald's role in the use of advertising to the sell junk food to young people & children.  Junk food is a huge business involving equally huge profits—largely at the expense of our children's health.  The junk food industry and advertising fuel the obesity epidemic that is spreading around the world.  Scary stuff.

Equally as scary is the latest gimmick-gizmo invented by the Coca-Cola Company.  In a news article entitled, "One giant leap in soda fountains," author Mike Huglett reports on "a newfangled, high-tech soda fountain" being distributed by Coca-Cola.  It is called "Freestyle," and it is officially a beverage dispenser that is able to produce over one hundred "Coke offerings" instead of the usual eight or so found in the average soft drink vending machine.  And according to the article, the Freestyle specifically targets young people.  The article reports, in fact, that older folks find the Freestyle confusing and hard to use.  There's a learning curve for us.  (This is just one more instance of our kids "getting" the technology stuff well before we their parents.)  This stuff isn't good for our kids (for details, see here or here), and the last thing we need is a still more enticing and efficient obesity dispenser.

Note: Coca Cola reported a substantial increase in profit for the first quarter of 2010, according to an article at MarketWatch.com, on a total revenue of $10,520,000,000 ($10.52 billion).  Obesity is big business—and hugely profitable.