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I have been mulling over my first American Public Health Association Annual Meeting,
a gathering of nutritionists, researchers, and public health advocates
most invested in improving the health of Americans that took place one
month ago in Denver.
Of particular interest to me were the programs that unveiled new
research related to food marketing and obesity. As expected, a number
of speakers presented their take on the correlations between
consumption of soft drinks, fast foods, and snacks with obesity; the
problems surrounding advertising to children; and the impact of posting
calorie counts on what fast food items customers select.
But what struck me the most was what wasn't emphasized (or picked up by the press). For instance:
• Posting calories on restaurant menu boards is not working. In the four metropolitan areas in which calorie information had been
provided to customers (New York; Philadelphia; Seattle; Portland,
Oregon), results demonstrated little or no reduction in the number of
calories purchased.
• Some food marketers are making dramatic improvements in reducing advertising to children. While the number of fast food advertisements directed at children increased
from 2003 to 2009, the number of ads earmarked to kids dropped for the
major soft drink companies, with Coca-Cola recording the biggest
decline at -56 percent.
This was open warfare, a battle between "good and evil," between Public Health and Big Food. It's time to call a truce.
• There is no evidence that taxing sweetened beverages lowers obesity rates. These taxes will surely reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened
beverages, but studies to date have not dealt with the "substitution
effect"—do consumers simply eat other high-calorie products
instead?—which other researchers indicate would not help ameliorate the
problem.
But there was more than these seemingly innocuous omissions. One
session I attended delineated legal tactics on how to attack the food
industry based on lessons from the tobacco wars, tactics eerily similar
to what food marketers have been accused of employing.
In another presentation, I suggested that perhaps it would be worth
creating incentives for food marketers to more aggressively lower the
number of calories they sell. This was met with an irate response from
the session's leader: That approach won't make a difference, industry
will never change, and "good luck" trying.
With that I concluded that the campaign to reverse America's
ever-expanding girth has reached an impasse. This was no silent
undertone of discontentment. This was open warfare, a battle between
"good and evil," between Public Health and Big Food.
It's time to call a truce.
What we need now is an entirely new approach that can address the
nation's obesity problem. Solutions must be found that work for all
invested parties—public health officials, the food industry, and
consumers. As long as the bipolar politics of food prevails, fixes to
our nation's obesity crisis will remain elusive.
Making real progress demands the adoption of new rules of engagement. It's imperative that:
• Public health advocates accept that corporations are in business to make a profit;
• Food marketers be active participants in driving calories out of the food supply; and
• Both parties must focus on what's best for the consumer.
It's time that we devote our energies on fixing America's obesity
epidemic rather than defending tired positions. The Battle of the Bulge
has morphed into the War of the Roses, with the prospects of a pyrrhic
victory now more likely. Are we determined to be "right" at the expense
of sentencing our children to a shorter, less healthy life? Clearly
this is an unacceptable legacy.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/12/the-obesity-wars-ti...
