Coca-Cola unveiled a new anti-obesity campaign Wednesday, pledging to better regulate its advertising to children and ensure clear nutritional labeling is available on its drinks around the world.

In the U.S., calorie counts for Coca-Cola products are displayed on the front of drink labels and no-calorie diet versions of drinks are readily available, but in other countries, there’s not as much consistency in product labeling and the availability of diet drinks. Coke’s new push aims to remedy that, and will also halt all advertising targeted at audiences younger than 12.

Coke, which is based in Atlanta, also announced Wednesday that it would contribute $3.8 million to support nutrition education and physical activity programs in Georgia. Most of the money will go toward the Georgia SHAPE program, an initiative that works with k-12 school districts to increase students’ physical activity, and the Centers of Hope program, which connects at-risk students to physical activity and leadership development programs.

While the pledges and donations help improve Coke’s public image, they don’t address the core of the the company’s public health problem: the increasing body of literature that has linked soda and other sugary drink consumption to diabetes, obesity and even death. Even diet drinks — which Coke lauds as some of its healthier options — have been tied to negative health effects, like an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

And despite Coke’s public relations campaign, the company, through the American Beverage Association (ABA), has historically fought against public health efforts to increase government regulation of the soda industry. The ABA has lobbed against soda taxes and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large soft drinks.

Coke’s most recent efforts come on the heels of an anti-obesity advertising campaign launched by the company in January, which featured TV ads that acknowledged America’s obesity problem and pointed out steps the Coke had taken — including creating smaller portion sizes for its drinks and sponsoring children’s programs such as the Boys and Girls Club — to address the issue. The ad ends by explaining that “all calories count, no matter where they come from,” a claim that sparked an outcry among critics, who point out that calories from soda are entirely empty calories from added sugar and contain no nutritional value.

Coca-Cola is pursuing a new PR strategy with the company’s first advertising foray into the national obesity debate. The ads, launched on Monday, come as the soda industry faces increasing scrutiny over the role that soft drinks play in the obesity epidemic, while it faces a declining share of the U.S. beverage market.

The Associated Press describes the new ads:

The Atlanta-based company on Monday will begin airing a two-minute spot during the highest-rated shows on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC in hopes of becoming a more influential voice in the intensifying debate over sodas and their impact on public health. The ad lays out Coca-Cola’s record of providing drinks with fewer calories over the years and notes that weight gain is the result of consuming too many calories of any kind — not just soda.

In the ad, a narrator notes that obesity is an issue that “concerns all of us” but that people can make a difference when they “come together.”

A second ad “features a montage of activities that add up to burning off the ’140 happy calories’ in a can of Coke.”

But soda’s impact on health is a little more complicated than that. One-third of the sugar in Americans’ diets come from soda and sweetened beverages, and ample research links soft drinks to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. One study found children’s odds of becoming obese increased 60 percent for each additional 12-ounce soda. American children consume an estimated 7 trillion calories each year from soda.

In fact, research suggests that even when Coca-Cola touts diet soda as a healthy option, the company is still advertising a product that is linked to weight gain, heart attack, and stroke risks.

While Coca-Cola runs these ads, it will likely continue to wage well-funded battles against efforts to implement a soda tax, through the trade group American Beverage Association.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are out with a new study finding that alcoholic beverages contribute to five percent of U.S. adults’ caloric intakes — just shy of the six percent of total calories that Americans consume from sodas and other sugar-infused drinks.

The study’s findings highlight the difficulty of solving America’s obesity epidemic — a public health crisis that threatens to lower Americans’ lifespans and further exacerbate the skyrocketing cost of health care. As NPR reports, the study concludes that men take in significantly more alcohol calories than women, and that consumption is spread evenly across racial lines:

—On any given day, about one-third of men and one-fifth of women consumed calories from beer, wine or liquor.

—Averaged out to all adults, the average guy drinks 150 calories from alcohol each day, or the equivalent of a can of Budweiser.

—The average woman drinks about 50 calories, or roughly half a glass of wine.

—Men drink mostly beer. For women, there was no clear favorite among alcoholic beverages.

—There was no racial or ethnic difference in average calories consumed from alcoholic beverages. But there was an age difference, with younger adults putting more of it away.

For reference, a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola has 140 calories, slightly less than a same-sized can of regular Bud. A 5-ounce glass of wine is around 100 calories.

In the wake of multiple studies showing that sugary drinks are a huge contributor to American obesity, New York City instituted a ban on large-sized sodas. But before lawmakers start limiting beers to shot glass serving sizes, it’s important to note that alcohol consumption is a far more manageable contributor to weight gain than sugary drinks are. As public health advocate Margo Wootan points out, sodas and sweetened beverages are the biggest source of calories in American children’s diets, making sodas not only the biggest but also the earliest contributors to the U.S. obesity crisis.

On Friday, the New York Times ran a depressing account of how the beverage industry used clever marketing gimmicks and millions of dollars to defeat the the state’s penny-per-ounce tax on soda. Using the front New Yorkers Against Unfair Taxes, the industry framed the policy as a new tax on struggling middle and lower class families during an economic recession and spent at least 9.8 million on the campaign:

The tax that the governor’s allies referred to somewhat awkwardly as a “sugary beverage tax” immediately became known in the vernacular as “the fat tax,” which sounded like a rebuke to anyone who has ever stood on a bathroom scale and winced. The governor quickly threw in the towel that first year, when he still aspired to run for election in 2010. [...]

The health message resonated with public-spirited groups like the New York Academy of Medicine and editorial writers. Enter New Yorkers Against Unfair Taxes, set up by the beverage industry, grocers and the Teamsters, who work as drivers and in production. The organization’s Web site describes it as a humble coalition of “hard-working individuals, struggling families and already burdened small businesses,” like Benny’s Pizza and Kay’s Deli.

But behind the scenes, much of the strategic work came from Goddard Claussen, the public affairs company whose “Harry and Louise” commercials helped defeat President Bill Clinton’s health care overhaul efforts. The company was retained by the American Beverage Association to lobby against the New York tax.

On the whole, all of this is really bad news. Researchers say that “the link between obesity and soda is scientifically stronger than the link between obesity and any other type of food or beverage” and predict that sugar-sweeted beverages “may be the single largest driver of the obesity epidemic.” Each year, obese adults incur “an estimated $1,429 more in medical expenses than their normal-weight peers,” and overall, the nation spent up to $147 billion on obesity-related costs in 2008.

As David Leonhardt noted back in in May, “[s]omeday, we will probably look back on our gallon-a-week soda habit the way we now look back on allowing children to ride without seat belts or listening to doctors who endorsed Camel cigarettes. We will wonder what we were thinking.” Indeed, the industry’s argument may have won the day, but you can’t get away from the reality taxing a non-essential commodity that only increases health care expenditures makes a lot of sense, particularly during periods of staggering deficits. Goddard Claussen defeated health reform in 1994, only to see comprehensive legislation passed 16 years later. Here’s to hoping the soda tax won’t take half that long.

As a growing number of cities and states are considering plugging budget shortfalls with a tax on soda, the beverage industry is actively lobbying legislatures to defeat the measure, the Wall Street Journal reports. In Philadelphia, the Canada Dry Delaware Valley Bottling Co even offered to donate $10 million “into health and wellness programs in the city through the Pew Charitable Trusts” to keep the city from imposing the tax. “The moves come as officials in at least 20 cities and states have proposed new taxes or the removal of tax exemptions on non-alcoholic beverages so far this year”:

Industry officials argue that taxes would penalize consumers at a time when people are already struggling and lead to lost jobs for bottlers and distributors. “This is all about grabbing money to fill budget deficits and pay for more government,” said Kevin Keane, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, the main trade organization representing Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and other beverage makers. “There’s really a grassroots disdain for more taxes, especially on grocery items.”

The ABA spent $18.9 million in 2009 on lobbying, compared with about $668,000 in 2008, with most of the money going toward ads against a federal soft-drink tax. The organization spent $5.4 million in the first quarter of 2010, up from $140,000 in the year-earlier period, with most of the money in the latest quarter spent on advertising changes that have been made in beverage selections at schools to reduce calories, the ABA said. The figures don’t include money spent by local coalitions and lobbyists to battle state and local taxes.

Map of state efforts:

So far the lobbying has been a success, as soda tax initiatives have basically failed in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and New York City. The industry has put forth the argument that soda is an essential commodity and that taxing it would disproportionately impact poor families who drink it most. But the tax is only as regressive as the disease itself and the industry’s meme only makes sense if you ignore or discount the fact that obesity disproportionately affects the poor. The “more government” argument is also unsound, since taxing soda could actually reduce government spending on obesity-related treatments and improve health outcomes among lower income Americans.

Lobbyists may have succeeded over the short term, but you can’t get away from the reality that in a period of staggering deficits, taxing a non-essential commodity that only increases health care expenditures makes a lot of sense. That economic necessity for revenue may make all of the lobbying obsolete– at least in the long-term.