Coca-Cola Christmas truck tour: The map that shows the towns with the highest child obesity levels being visited by Coca-Cola this Christmas
Labour MP Keith Vaz has said the Coca-Cola Christmas truck tour is 'ill-judged and unwise at a time of record diabetes and obesity levels'
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Your support makes all the difference.The iconic Coca-Cola Christmas truck will travel through towns with some of the highest child obesity levels in England as it makes its journey around the country.
It is scheduled to call at Manchester, Liverpool and the London boroughs of Greenwich and Westminster - where one in four children is officially obese.
The glittering red truck will also visit Gloucester, Great Yarmouth, Middlesbrough and Nottingham, each of which appears in the top 50 areas for child obesity, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
However, the truck will not be stopping at Boston in Lincolnshire, the town with the highest proportion of obese children.
The truck is scheduled to stop at 46 locations in the UK as part of Coca-Cola's celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Holidays Are Coming advert.
It is also stopping in Scotland and Wales, where comparable data on childhood obesity is not available.
Labour MP Keith Vaz has said the Coca-Cola Christmas truck is "not welcome" in his constituency of Leicester.
Mr Vaz, who has type 2 diabetes, said: “The Coca-Cola truck is not welcome in Leicester, and this national tour to promote sugar-laden drinks is ill-judged and unwise at a time of record diabetes and obesity levels.”
He said the promotion of sugary drinks is the "wrong thing" in a city where a third of children have tooth decay.
A Coca-Cola Great Britain spokesperson said: "After many months of planning we created the best route, which covers a large regional spread and includes 17 new locations. We have also facilitated 65% of the requests made this year by the public and local councils."
Responding to Mr Vaz's comments, they said: "We’re delighted to be visiting Leicester this year as part of the Coca-Cola Christmas truck tour.
"There will also be an opportunity to choose one of the four Coca-Cola variants to enjoy – this includes Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero, our no calorie, no sugar variants.
"Our Christmas truck tour also operates in line with our responsible marketing policy so we don’t sample our drinks directly to under 12s.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
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