How sweet talk from Big Food is fuelling disease risk

Sugar-laden drinks aimed at children are just one example of misleading marketing that can have devastating effects

- Kaamil Ahmed, Amrit Dhillon

The bright red bottle of Sting, an energy drink, catches Sunita Devi's eye when she finds her local shopkeeper has run out of the biscuits she hoped to buy to fuel her son through his homework. She cannot read the English label, but 10-year-old Ajit says it sounds healthy.

"Stimulates mind, energises body," the bottle proclaims. It's the type of marketing that helps shop owner Vasu Gupta sell energy drinks - mostly to families who have migrated from the countryside to a slum in Govindpuri in the Indian capital, Delhi.

But the drink, which is made by PepsiCo India, is not quite as beneficial as it sounds. A 250ml bottle contains 17g of sugar - a third of the daily intake recommended by the World Health Organization, although there is nothing on the packaging to warn about its high sugar levels; and the small print on the back says the drink is not recommended for children.

Drinks and snacks claiming to benefit consumers are concerning food campaigners working in India and elsewhere in the developing world, who say that food companies are getting away with marketing ultra-processed foods, high in sugar and salt, by promising health, height, strength, energy and even happiness.

The result, they say, is a crisis in rising diabetes and hypertension and poorly nourished children.

The link between unhealthy diets and ultra-processed food and drinks prompted the WHO to issue guidelines this month recommending that governments restrict marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt to children, because of the harmful effects on health and nutrition.

Arun Gupta, the head of the thinktank Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest - India, said it was a "ticking timebomb". "Everybody wants their child to grow well, tall and free from disease. Those aspirations are actually used, emotionally exploited," he said.