The documentary “Sugar Coated” explains that intake of sugar can lead to various diseases like diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, etc. However, during the 1970s, The Sugar Association got approval from the FDA that sugar was safe; before this, sugar was not seen as a healthy product. After the approval, numerous ad campaigns and articles were written to present sugar as a healthy source of energy. In contrast to this, the documentary presents the fact that sugar is not what it is hyped up to be (Holzer, 2015). The media has played dual roles many times, representing both the good side and the bad side. However, the question is, what is the limit to promoting products that are dangerous to society? Is money that important that public safety is disregarded completely? Why do dangerous products like sugar get so much attention, but documentaries exposing them do not?
These questions have been asked many times, and the simple yet unfortunate answer is that corruption reigns supreme in every field. The Sugar Association was not able to get approval as it was not able to prove that sugar was healthy; however, it secured the approval overnight, and the media that was against sugar suddenly started singing praises of it. The scientists in the documentary state that they believe that a strong political influence was involved. They were able to confirm these suspicions when they found the confidential documents of the Sugar Association. Now, due to the greed of Politicians and other elites, diabetes has risen to 9.3 per cent all across the globe, which means that 463 million people are affected by it at this point. As long as the media is influenced by corruption, the world will continue to suffer. We are already aware of the harmful products, but the real question is, how long will it take for the world to finally stand up and do something about them? Media, in some situations, plays the devil’s advocate, but so do we by being silent (Turow, 2020).
References
Holzer, M. (2015). Sugar Coated Investigating PR Tactics Implemented by the Food Industry. Media Education Foundation.
Turow, J. (2020). Media today: Mass communication in a converging world. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429489235
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