Who says you can’t do more with less? proclaims the official description for Sprite Zero Sugar. Youthful advertisements full to the brim with gleeful snapshots of the fizz of carbonation, animated wings and heart-eyes, brashly embellished logos — all a cascade of images that ubiquitously claim: Come take a sip with us! The era of zero-calorie drinks is here and here to stay. Documenting the pace of their precipitous growth, the combined market value for sugar-free drinks recorded 220 billion Korean won (KRW) as of 2021 according to combined statistics of distribution industries.

Ever since the Flapper-inspired diet routine hit the magazine pamphlets in the 1920s, consumers over the century have been showered with products that are seemingly diet-culture friendly, fluctuating greatly in strict accordance with the body ideals of the period. Diet soda, the most prominent modern addition to the game, stands out based on its sheer ubiquitous popularity and its iconic status as the epitome of the early 2020s’ health care trends.

Not Quite Sugar

In a can of Coke Zero, one of the best-selling zero-calorie drinks on the market, there are zero grams of sugar, fat, protein, or any other feasible nutritional additions. With 0.3 calories per 100 milliliters, the drink derives its characteristic sweetness from artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame, flavorings, and colors.

Though the Coca-Cola Company launched its first zero-calorie soft drink, Tab, in 1904, the launch of Coke Zero in 2005 was the de facto catalyst of the modern diet soda market. With its relatively new stance in the food industry, the exact health ramifications of the drinks, most particularly the artificial sweeteners used in them, remain a conflicting topic in medical science. Though some observational studies report that continuous consumption of diet sodas is linked with an increase in risks of sugar addiction, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, other studies propose a counterargument to document that zero-calorie drinks may have positive effects in detaining weight gain.

The bottom line, however, is that diet sodas have zero nutritional value and carry potential health risks that are yet to be cleared.

Public Enemy Number One

The biggest source of attraction for diet drinks is their absence of sugar and calories, which are then deliberately marketed to seem healthier. Consequently, consumers feel as if they can drink as many of the syrupy concoctions as they wish without feeling guilt for consuming sugary junk. A significant portion of the guilt derives from the entrenched foundations of diet culture and the anti-sugar movement which sits at its forefront.

As diet culture became properly monetized during the early 20th century, an array of wellness fads went in and out of fashion over the decades. The phobia of fat was the characteristic weight-loss fad of the 70s. In his book The Case Against Sugar, Gary Taubes, an American investigative health journalist, argues that the low-fat trend and the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup resulted in the explosion of sugar consumption over the following two decades. As items containing fat were denounced as the sole causes of weight gain, the health complications brought by refined carbohydrates and sugar-heavy drinks spiked with corn syrup were diminished purely based on their absence of fat. Such dietary trends were linked with the obesity and diabetes endemic, which, upon revelation and media spotlight, lead to sugar now supplanting the role of the public’s number one enemy. Indicatively, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised countries to impose taxes on sugary drinks to hinder their consumption in 2017.

Back when low-fat items were in vogue, it was not uncommon to see items marketed as low-fat, yet compensate for the absence of fat with an abundance of added sugars. Now that the biggest trend in the food industry is anti-sugar, every company is attempting to substitute sugar for non-fattening sweeteners — branching out from mere diet sodas, zero-sugar gummies, cookies, and ice cream bars now embellish grocery store shelves.

Starving is No Longer Cool?

As an increasing portion of the population develops an infatuation for health care, the market for such products that diligently keep up with weight-loss trends continues to augment. In a survey by The Granite Tower (GT) in its April issue, 88.3 percent of Korea University (KU) students reported taking part in preventive health care at least once a week, with 47.3 percent responding that losing weight was their main purpose in pursuing health care.

The younger generation’s propensity to find a pleasurable compromise between taste-oriented pleasures and dieting might be one of the era’s most differentiating characteristics from previous trends. Nicknamed the fad of healthy pleasure by Chosun Ilbo, the younger generation – traditionally the biggest consumers of diet products –  aim to transform health care into something akin to a palate-pleasing game. Instead of attempting to cut out carbonated drinks altogether, people now turn to their zero-calorie options; similarly, rather than denying themselves the pleasure of a chocolate bar, they reach for the chocolate-flavored protein bar, and so on.

An over-obsession with health care, however, is known to produce adverse effects on an individual’s body image and their relationship with their body. According to a 2020 study by The British Journal of Psychiatry, diagnoses of eating disorders from people younger than 30 have increased by 15.3 percent in 2020 when compared to previous years. Distortions of self-image and body dissatisfaction brought by an over-exposure to social media, isolation caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and malicious marketing trends targeting physical insecurities are but a few factors behind the trend of eating disorders in the young generation.

The mere consumption of zero-calorie drinks is not a dire emergency; the social trends in which it encapsulates, however, are ones that society should tread carefully on. Though the progression of trends under consumerism, and the acceleration of their life spans under the Internet, is unavoidable, consumers should take caution in allowing their bodies to be held entirely gullible against social trends. The one-food diet, detox diet, and cigarette diet of the previous decades were all cool until they weren’t. So, for now, let’s enjoy our crisp Coke Zeroes — who knows when the next trend would deem it as an anachronistic health abomination?