Youth in Bay Area Roll Out “Open Truth” Campaign Against Sugary Drink Marketing

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Studies consistently find that youth remain a big target for sugary drink marketing, especially Latino and African American youth. A group of teens in the Bay Area are tired of being mislead and manipulated by these marketing companies, and have decided to do something about it.

The Open Truth campaign, a youth-focused effort to highlight the health impacts of sugary drinks and expose precision marketing practices that target young people and communities of color, launched this week in San Francisco. The multimedia campaign includes videos created by Bay Area youth from The Bigger Picture Campaign, billboards in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood, and ads on bus shelters and MUNI buses, BART stations and trains, AC Transit and storefronts around the Bay Area.

According to Sarah Fine, the a project director of The Bigger Picture, sugary drink companies spend more than $28 million a year on marketing campaigns specifically targeting youth of color.

Sugary drinks have been linked to all sorts of diet-related disease, tooth decay and even cancer.

The Open Truth campaign is calling upon people to help in the following ways:

1. Email or tweet sugary drink executives and demand they stop marketing unhealthy beverages to children and teens.

2. Ask that labels on soda cans and bottles convey clearly how much sugar the drink contains.

3. Learn about proposed sugary drink warning label legislation in California.

Read more in the San Francisco Examiner.

Read the press release announcing the Open Truth campaign.