Sugar Peddling Vintage Ads: Lose Weight With Fizzy Drinks!

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“If sugar is so fattening, how come so many kids are thin? Next time you pass a bunch of kids, take a look. Kids eat and drink more things made with sugar than anybody. But how many fat kids do you see?”

Ummmm.  Actually, it seems every kid I see is a fat ass.  In the US, the natural stages of childhood are: learning to walk, learning to talk, and getting Type II Diabetes.

Yet, this advert is more of an indictment against the unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle of today than it is against the lying sugar peddlers.  Kids really were thinner then, and, perhaps, a lot of that has to do with the fact that high fructose corn syrup replaced sugar.

 

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The very idea of using sugar as a way to lose weight seems a stretch.  These adverts are the result of fear running up and down the spine of the sugar industry in response to the new artificial sweeteners.  They were willing to try anything, even market it as a weight-loss food, to keep sugar on top.

Yet, there might be a glimmer of truth from these sugar peddlers. Sugar caused more cavities, but high fructose corn syrup is the prime suspect in the fattening of Americans (and now Europeans are starting to feel the girth).  Brands like Coke and Pepsi have long since switched from sugar to high fructose corn syrup, and subsequently, the western world has gotten a whole lot lumpier.

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