Why health activists are against Coca-Cola sponsoring Youth Olympics

Eleven-year-old Martin wants to become a sports star. Like Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, or Ronaldo. And make pots of money.

He will, however, never become a sportsman, because he is grossly obese. He is also addicted to fizzy cola drinks, which he has to have at every meal, starting from breakfast. He sits before the TV for endless hours, watching telecasts of the IPL, World Cups, Wimbledon and other gala international events, fantasising about his own future in sports.

Connect this boy’s lifestyle and health to the fact that the ongoing 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has the multinational soft drink giant Coca Cola as one of its main sponsors and you see how it all adds up, to trash the dreams of thousands of Martins around the world. A declaration condemning Coke’s sponsorship, released by health activists around the world, had received, at last count (August 2018) an impressive endorsement from 241 supporters (including five international associations of nutritionists as signatories) from Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Uruguay, New Zealand, Colombia, El Salvador and Ecuador. The signatories demand that the multinational withdraw its sponsorship.