Like do you hold the same opinion of coffee shops that sell sugary drinks, pastry shops, candy makers, snack food makers, ice cream shops, breweries, distilleries? Does “treats taste good” not qualify as a positive?
Like it’s wild to me to think that if I served you a piece of chocolate cake you would be like “how dare you! It has excessive calories and will rot my teeth!”
The constant fight for your attention. Billboards, storefronts, internet, tv, radio, everywhere you go you have highly researched pictures and sounds that try to manipulate your feeble mammal brain to purchase their products.
Your first paragraph suggests you regard advertising as something far more benign that it is.
Cool, but I’m still a person who has has a diet, normal hunger, and watches my sugar intake. Like it’s not as if I’m suddenly going to guzzle sugary soda indiscriminately. And it’s not like soda is special in this regard.
If I see an ad for a new flavor of Oreos that interests me it’s not like I’m compelled to buy a box and eat the whole thing in one sitting on top of my regular diet.
But that seems a little weird. Does coming from a local soda shop suddenly make the drinks have fewer calories or less sugar?
* Soda, like all sweets, are bad for your health if not consumed in moderation or at least with mindfulness about their nutritional content.
* Large food-stuff manufactures are quite good at convincing consumers to buy their products and choose their brand over others with very expensive ad campaigns.
What I’m not convinced of, and what doesn’t follow from these, is that ads are effective at persuading consumers to buy and consume their products on top of their regular diets which is what would be required for them to be a public health issue.
Advertising can be 100% effective but it doesn't make peoples' stomachs bigger.
Coca Cola makes people fat and gives them tooth decay. Their product has a socially negative value. It's essential that they counter these facts with positive images.