The Coca-Cola Company proposed and financed the now-defunct group Global Energy Balance Network as a “weapon” in the “growing war between the public health community and private industry” over obesity and the obesity epidemic, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The study is based on documents obtained via state Freedom of Information request by U.S. Right to Know, a consumer and public health group.

The study states that “The documents reveal that Coca-Cola funded and supported the GEBN because it would serve as a ‘weapon’ to ’change the conversation’ about obesity amidst a ’growing war between the public health community and private industry’.”

“This study reveals The Coca-Cola Company’s true intentions to go to war with the public health community over obesity and who is responsible for it,” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of US Right to Know, a co-author of the study.