Coca-Cola is trying to make children associate warm and fuzzy Christmas feelings with their addictive and obesity-causing sugar water. One step in their plan is to send a Christmas truck to 46 cities in Great Britain.
This is nothing new. What's new is the icy headwinds facing the soda industry.
A member of parliament from Leicester is publicly asking Coca-Cola not to bring the truck to his city, and threatens protests if they do. MP Keith Vaz says the truck will send the wrong message in a city with rising diabetes problems (he has diabetes type 2 himself) and where a third of kids have tooth decay.
Obviously Keith Vaz gets criticized for this bold move. Some of the criticism likely comes from Coca-Cola's many paid cronies, and some is in the form of well-meaning objections from everything-goes libertarians. And some of it is surely from sugar-addicted parents.
Personally I think there should be protests everywhere the Coca-Cola sugar truck goes. Christmas is not about getting kids addicted to unhealthy drinks, and Coca-Cola should be called out when they try to use Christmas to hook kids on their sugar. Just like we would call out Phillip Morris if they used a Christmas truck, with smoking Santas handing out cigarrettes to kids.