Perhaps corporate capitalism's

ultimate products is soda pop

It preys upon human weaknesses for sugar

and caffeine and sensory titillation

You make at home or obtain for free

It is mildly addictive

It is highly packageable and marketable

Insidious Marketing

Soda Pop Is Fueling Obesity

Ads are everywhere blazing the latest soft drink

to hit the retailer shelves

It's usually another syrupy and sugar filled concoction

packed with caffeine and carbonation that is bound

to be a hit with some niche market

Beyond that are the giants Pepsi and Coca-Cola who are

household names with battles over preference and taste

America's craze for soda is not new,

but its effects on our health are

People are consuming more soda than ever before

and it's beginning to show

in the waistlines of the population

How many cans of soda pop do you consume in a day? Think of how many you consume in a year. One of the leading causes in obesity and weight gain seen in children and adults today is caused by soft drinks.

Drinking pop has become routine and pretty much an addiction to most people today. Think of how many times we sit down and need our favourite pop and chips when we sit down and watch a movie.

The thing is that most people don't seem to realize is that just from drinking soft drinks can equal your daily consumption of calories recommended.

Did you know that one can of pop contains 200 calories. A single can of pop contains about 12 teaspoons of sugar.

Now people are beginning to realize that nutrition and what we drink are causing health problems like obesity and weight gain we see in children today.

If people are trying to lose weight they definitely need to take pop out of there diet plan.

Capitalism's Beverage & the Obesity Epidemic [Original]

The LA Times reports that Disneyland is retooling its boats-on-water rides because of the raging obesity epidemic in the United States, "to deal with the delicate problem of bottoming-out boats."

People are simply getting too fat for the existing rides, including the now satirically named "It's a Small World":

Forty-one years after the whimsical ride debuted at the Anaheim park, Disneyland plans to shutter the attraction in January to give it a much-needed face-lift -- and deal with the delicate problem of bottoming-out boats.

Heavier-than-anticipated loads have been causing the boats to come to a standstill in two different spots, allowing for an extra-long gander at the Canadian Mounties and the Scandinavian geese, said Al Lutz, whose website MiceAge first reported the refurbishment plans.

Disneyland is well aware of America's expanding waistlines.

In recent years, the park has redesigned many of its costumes and started stocking them in larger sizes to accommodate ever-expanding waistlines.

Adult men and women are about 25 pounds heavier than they were in 1960, and 65% are considered overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The average weight for men jumped from 166 pounds in 1960 to 191 pounds in 2002; women average 164 pounds instead of 140.

Of course, this is a world of fantasy and the perfect place to forget about that diet for a few hours. So when somebody gets booted from the boat, Lutz said, Disneyland ride operators make sure the guests don't leave disappointed: They hand them a food ticket.

A Growing Problem: Race, Class and Obesity Among American Women

Research shows that social class measured by income and education can be more powerful than genetics in predicting future health problems, including obesity.

There has been a 50 percent increase in the percentage of Americans that are obese and the doubling of the number of overweight children in the past two decades.

"Genes don't make us obese. They allow us to be obese," said Hill, who also is director of the Center of Human Nutrition at Colorado Health Sciences University.

It is the lifestyle that an individual who is susceptible to obesity chooses that will most affect her propensity to becoming overweight.

Dr. Elissa Epel of the University of California at San Francisco has noticed that scientists are "recognizing the importance of uncoupling race and social class" in their research.

Epel studies the correlation between stress and fat distribution determined by the presence of growth hormone and has found that individuals with the lowest levels of education have the lowest levels of growth hormone making them more likely to gain weight.

"The more growth hormone you have, the less you tend to be obese," she said. While genetics play some part in the amount of growth hormone that one's body produces, Epel has found that stress is a major factor.

"Being of low social status can put someone under chronic stress," she said.

"People with less education tend to have jobs with a lot of responsibility and less control."

She explained that a head of a company may experience a high level of job related stress but would have more choices and control over the situation and that, in turn, alleviates stress overall.

A day laborer, however, has little control over the stress of daily life.

Epel said that the stress of life at low educational and socioeconomic levels is a direct cause of obesity.

Once labeled an epidemic, obesity must be dealt with on an individual as well as a societal level.

Education, prevention and methods of controlling body weight must all be targeted to the specific populations involved.

Hill blames the American environment for the alarming rates of obesity.

"Everywhere we go, it encourages people to eat," Hill exclaimed disgustedly during a telephone interview.

"We are the most sedentary generation ever. We don't get a lot of physical activity. Our physiology isn't set up to maintain a normal weight under these circumstances."

A controlled body weight is a matter of balancing the energy that is taken into the body, food or drink, with the level of energy expended by the body in the form of physical activity or exercise.

This seemingly simple equation is complicated by the fact that more than 25 percent of women are not active at all.

African Americans and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be physically inactive, and people at a lower socioeconomic level exercise less than wealthier individuals.

Blaming Corporate Capitalism

As I explain in my book The Consumer Trap, as the system churns on, its normal operation compels all big businesses to extend and refine their marketing operations, which are neither more nor less than history's most detailed and expensive behavioral-control campaigns.

As this generates an expanding marketing race, it increasingly commercializes and commodifies off-the-job life.

Along the way, less capitalist-friendly practices and products give way to more capitalist ones.

One of corporate capitalism's ultimate (and hence most important) products is soda pop: It preys upon human weaknesses for sugar and caffeine and sensory titillation.

It is impossible to make at home or obtain for free. It is mildly addictive. It is highly packageable and marketable.

Along with the reign of the automobile (another of corporate capitalism's core products), soda pop is a chief cause of the horrifying obesity epidemic in the United States.

Soda pop has roughly 150 empty calories per 12-oz serving.

In 1900, Americans drank the equivalent of 12 12-oz cans of soda per capita annually.

In 1929, they drank 26 cans per person per year.

1949 = 158; 1957 = 200.

In 2004? 535 cans of pop per person per year!

Soda now far surpasses water as the #1 thing Americans drink. Between 1980 and 2005, its per capita ingestion in the United States increased every single year!

An Aside

People in the mass media often puzzle over why French people are not as fat as Americans. Is it drinking wine? French mystique? A secret epidemic of French bulimia?

Hell, no! It's the cars and the soda pop, i.e. the unrestricted capitalism, stupid!

The French have the Paris Metro and the TGVs and a forest of bikeable and walkable cities.

And what was France's 2004 per capita ingestion of soda pop? Just over 100 cans per person, about 1/5 of the U.S. rate.

400 cans of soda-pop, the number Americans drink over each year and above the French average, contain 60,000 calories. Q.E.D.]

Free Market totalitarianism

As I like to say, the degree of control our ruling class has over us underlings would make Joseph Stalin purple with jealousy.

We in America just simply live under market totalitarianism. Our habits are approaching complete commodification, with outcomes that deserve serious consideration by anybody wondering what kind of basis money makes for a purported civilization