Kerre Woodham: We need to accept some personal responsibility

Photo / Greg Bowker

I had wondered how the family of 30-year-old mother-of-eight Natasha Harris could possibly blame the manufacturers of Coca-Cola for her death, especially given the fact that she was a 30-a-day smoker.

Then a sentence down the bottom of one of the news stories caught my eye: the family were hoping to obtain compensation from Coca-Cola for the children, who are now in care.

There we go.

That's why the family was pointing the bone at the monolithic international company. They smelled money.

But even more annoying than the attempts to blame the soft drink for the woman's death were the family's calls to have warning labels printed on Coke bottles.

Harris drank around seven litres of the drink every day. Her teeth had rotted and been removed. A number of her children had been born without tooth enamel.

Her own family had remonstrated with her about the amount of Coke she drank.

It defies belief to think that she didn't know she was drinking too much.

Too much of anything is bad for you and most of us know that. And given that there were plenty of health warnings on cigarette packets that Harris chose to ignore, it's doubtful she'd have heeded any warnings on a Coke bottle. Give me strength! How about a bit of personal responsibility instead of wanting to blame anyone and everyone for poor lifestyle choices?

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