Fairbank Center: On Books – Prof. Susan Greenhalgh – How did Coca Cola manage to influence China’s health policies around obesity?

How did Coca Cola manage to influence China’s health policies around obesity? In our latest On Books discussion, Susan Greenhalgh, John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society Emerita, answers with insights from her new book, Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (2024, University of Chicago Press). In her telling, Coca Cola persuaded Americans that exercise, not diet, is the fix for obesity—and then did the same in a China bent on learning from the West, hungry for its science, its capitalism, and its fast food.