Just look at the advertising and lobbying spending of sugar industry to gauge their power over population's discretionary spending.Also, bulk of their marketing spend is during cartoon programming of kids, "catch'em young"!
They successfully shifted blame from sugar to fat as cause of modern lifestyle diseases for last two decades. Would highly recommend the book "Case against Sugar" by Gary Taubes discussed amply here[0] and here[1].
Also recommend the documentary "Super Size Me"[2] a revealing take on workings of fast food industry.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480733