Marion Nestle’s heavyweight polemic against Coca-Cola and PepsiCo comes at an odd moment for the industry. Americans are drinking fewer     1    sodas—in the past year production was 23% below what it had been a decade earlier and even sales of diet drinks are losing their fizz, as consumers question the     2    of artificial sweeteners. Yet in America companies still produce 30 gallons of     3    (not diet) fizzy drinks per person per year.
    Drinking a lot of sweet fizzy drinks is     4    unhealthy. Unlike a Big Mac, they have no nutritional     5    ; nor do their calories     6    hunger. One large study found that for each could be added to a person’s daily diet, the risk of diabetes     7    by 22%. There are also links between sugar and heart disease, stroke and cancer.
    Fizzy drink companies     8    Ms. Nestle describes as an extraordinarily broad team of allies are skilled at escaping from     9    at regulation. That     10    friends, such as employees, bottlers and distributors, as well as the restaurants, cinemas, shops and sports stadiums that     11    their products. But the companies are also astute     12    . In 2011 Philadelphia was     13    a soda tax. After the soda lobby offered a big donation to the city’s children’s hospital, the idea     14    .
    Drinks companies must also     15    with a small army of health advocates, among which Ms. Nestle is a major-general.     16    the slow decline of soda in America, she and her allies are     17    . Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are peddling healthier drinks, such as bottled water.     18    , as they try to face down a long-term threat while     19    near-term profits, they are still     20    their syrupy fare.