Greetings, earthlings! I’m back to work after baby leave and it does feel a little like returning from outer space. If in outer space you are never allowed to sleep and spend most of your days feeling overjoyed and terrified and wildly in love all at the same time. (I didn’t see it — because I have a newborn and have to wait for movies to come to Netflix — but that was roughly the experience of Sandra Bullock in Gravity, no?)
Anyway. I’m happy to be here and especially happy to tell you about several cool projects that hit newsstands while I was away. First up: “Rethink the Pink Drink” (PDF or online), which ran in the October issue of Marie Claire.
You’ve probably heard how crazily caffeinated energy drinks have been linked to several deaths, particularly among teenagers and young adults who mixed them with booze or had preexisting heart conditions. In this piece I investigate how the energy drink industry is responding to the bad press — by repackaging their frat boy party staples as health and weight loss aids. That come in pink cans, for the ladies.
The trouble is, of course, that the “new” energy drinks are really the same as the old energy drinks and they aren’t particularly good for your health. Also, it’s insulting when marketers think we’ll buy anything as long as they add a weight loss claim. So let’s not play that game. Put some damn whole milk in your coffee and go read this instead.