Obfuscating Ill-being and Creating Well-being: The Communication Strategies of Five Top Food and Beverage Companies

While research in the field of nutrition and health has been showing for decades that what we consume is fundamental for our health (see World Health Organization, 2025), the largest food and beverage companies in the world are still not relenting in their preparation of products that are harmful for our well-being. Clearly helped along by the fact that the term “well-being” is no longer just limited to physical health but can include “happiness, life satisfaction, personal strengths, and flourishing” (Holder, 2019, p. 1), these companies adopt communication strategies that arouse a positive psychological sentiment, obfuscating the health-related issues. It is the aim of this paper to analyse some of the linguistic strategies that five of the largest food and beverage companies in the world use to create psychological well-being regarding food and drink intake. More precisely, by applying the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis and by focussing in particular on word connotations, the choice of adjectives, and style of communication, the websites of JBS Foods, Nestlé, PepsiCo, The Coca-Cola Company, and Tyson Foods will be examined in order to unveil the linguistic and stylistic devices that foster a positive sentiment towards some food and drinks that scientific research has shown to be harmful.