Search results: sugar policy

I’ve just learned that I’m missing a Focus on Obesity conference in Washington DC today, organized by The Root as part of its Black, Fit & Healthy initiative.

Black Americans have the highest rates of obesity, and a conference devoted to promoting healthy diets in this population seems like a good idea.  This one has an impressive list of speakers.  Sam Kass, Michele Obama’s chef and food policy adviser, is giving the keynote, and many of the speakers are associated with government or private groups devoted to improving the diets, physical activity, and overall health of Black Americans.

The sponsors got my attention.  Two are the Office of Minority Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, and HBO, which produced the Weight of the Nation obesity documentary I discussed a few weeks ago.

But the third is the American Beverage Association (ABA), the trade association for Coke, Pepsi, and other sugary drinks linked to poor diets and overweight among children and adults.

This is the group that so opposes Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed bad on soft drinks larger than 16 ounces.

Not only that, but as documented by the Rudd Center at Yale, ABA members devote special efforts to marketing their products to Black Americans.  Advertising Age notes that the soft drink industry makes no apologies for targeting minorities and considers it “smart marketing.”

The Rudd study’s findings:

The irony: soft drink companies are sponsoring a conference to solve a health problem that their products helped cause in the first place.

Want to take bets on whether any of the speakers suggests cutting down on sodas or “don’t drink your calories”?

Rumors, as yet unverified, are flying:

• The American Beverage Association dreamed this conference up as a public relations move to position sodas as a solution to minority obesity, not its cause.
• Several of the speakers are former employees of, or have ties to, Coca-Cola.
• The Washington Post will be running a special section on the conference next week, flanked with American Beverage Association advertisements

If this last one is true, please save me a copy.

In the meantime, think about who is likely to derive the greatest benefit from this co-sponsorship alliance: the Office of Minority Health, Black Americans, or corporate members of the American Beverage Association.

I am in Brazil at meetings of World Nutrition Rio 2012 but was deluged yesterday by links to a lengthy Reuters’ Special Report: How Washington went soft on childhood obesity.

In an e-mail, Reuters explains that its report is about how food and beverage companies dominate policymaking in Washington, doubled lobbying expenditures during the past three years, and defeated government proposals aimed at changing the nation’s diet.

• The White House, despite First Lady Michelle Obama’s child obesity campaign, kept silent as Congress killed a plan by four federal agencies to recommend reductions to sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to children.
• Corporate lobbying last year led Congress to declare pizza a vegetable to protect it from a nutritional overhaul in the school lunch program.
• The Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying– roughly what companies opposing stricter food guidelines spent every 13 hours.
• The food and beverage industry has a near-perfect record in political battle even while health authorities link unhealthy food to the child obesity epidemic.
• During the past two years, each of the 24 states and five cities that considered “soda taxes” has seen the efforts dropped or defeated.

Reuters Investigates also has a video about how the food industry fought back when the White House sought healthier school lunches and Congress directed federal agencies to set nutrition standards.

Readers of this blog may recall my post last December fretting about the White House pullback, and the vigorous denial the next day by White House senior food policy advisor Sam Kass.

I attributed White House caution to the upcoming election.  Reuters does too, apparently, and so does the New York Times. 

If the First Lady is to make real progress on Let’s Move, she needs all the support she can get.  This might be a good time to send a note to the White House strongly encouraging more vigorous action on methods to address childhood obesity.

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, London, writes that the U.K. food industry is fighting back over initiatives to reduce calories and mitigate climate change.

He sends an article from the British trade publication, The Grocer, about how the U.K. government has reneged on its “responsibility deal” with industry to reduce calories in food products. 

The idea was to demand that food companies reformulate products, control portion size, and take “action to shift to lower calorie options.”

But now, in response to industry protests,  the U.K. Department of Health is simply inviting food companies to help in the development of calorie-reduction policies.

To this invitation to the fox to guard the chickens, professor Lang comments:

Those of us following the currently fashionable ‘nudge’ theory and other ‘Food Policy lite’ initiatives will note this leak about softening the Responsibility Deal on calorie reduction here in England with concern…Perish the thought that sections of the Food Industry might have lobbied hard to stop any efforts to reduce portion size. Perish, indeed.

Another article in The Grocer points out that Tesco, Britain’s leading food retailer, is pulling out of an agreement to put carbon labels on products becausedoing so is too much trouble.

Professor Lang writes:

Here is the world’s 3^rd largest food retailer, Tesco, apparently saying that the carbon label (a weak system for changing behaviour in the first place, perhaps) takes too much time. Well, well, well.

If this is true…the implications are considerable, not least for the planet, given that a third of European (i.e., rich consumers) greenhouse gas emissions are due to food.

He gives as sources for that statement:

• Tukker, A., et al., Environmental Impacts of Diet Changes in the EU. 2009, European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies: Seville.
• Tukker, A., et al., Environmental Impact of Products (EIPRO): Analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the final consumption of the EU-25. EUR 22284 EN. 2006, European Commission Joint Research Centre.: Brussels.
• Audsley, E., et al., How Low Can We Go? An assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from the UK food system and the scope for reduction by 2050 2010, FCRN and WWF: Godalming, Surrey.

So much for voluntary actions by industry.  Regulation anyone?

 This just in: The European Commission issued a statement of regret that the European Parliament vetoed its proposal to allow “percent less” health claims on food packages yesterday.  These are statements that a product contains 15% less sugar, for example.

The Commission thinks such claims will encourage reformulation of food products.  The Parliament believes that such claims are misleading and will promote sales of junk foods. 

Which is right? Who knows?

Sugary breakfast cereals are a hard cell these days, and marketers are getting increasingly creative.

Item: The Cornucopia Institute’s investigative report on “Natural” cereals warns consumers that “natural”—a term with no regulatory meaning—is marketing hype.  “Natural” is not the same as Organic.  “Natural” cereals have all kinds of things not allowed in Organic cereals.  It’s best not to confuse them.

Item: Researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity report in Public Health Nutrition that the households in their study tended to buy cereals advertised directly to children 13 times more frequently than non-advertised products, and that African-American and Hispanic families were most likely to buy cereals advertised directly to children. 

Item: The Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) reports that General Mills is using claims about whole grains to distract consumers from the sugar content. 

The company’s claim of “More Whole Grain Than Any Other Ingredient*” comes with an asterisk.  This goes to the disclaimer “*as compared to any other single ingredient.”

PHAI suggests taking a look at the General Mills’ web page about sugar.  This says that “Ready-to-eat cereals account for a relatively small amount of a child’s daily sugar intake.”

General Mills compares plain Cheerios (1 gram of sugar per serving) to Trix (10 grams of sugar per serving ), and asks:

From a calorie and nutrient standpoint, are both products a good breakfast choice?

The answer:  “Yes, they are. In fact, all General Mills cereals are lower calorie, nutrient dense choices.

From a calorie and nutrient standpoint, are both products a good breakfast choice?

Yes, they are. In fact, all General Mills cereals are lower calorie, nutrient dense choices.

From the standpoint of nutritionism (judging a product by its nutrient content), Cheerios is a better-for-you choice.

But both are highly processed cereals, thereby raising that same old philosophical question: is a somewhat better-for-you processed food necessarily a good choice?

A good question to ponder as you wander down the cereal aisle.

I subscribe to The Lancet, and always enjoy reading its editor’s weekly Offline column.  In October, editor Richard Horton wrote about how  government obesity policy needs to be based firmly on scientific evidence.

And what is that evidence?

On this question, the evidence is utterly clear.  Thanks to the work of the best scientific minds in obesity research, the most reliable evidence shows that the government’s plan should include taxes on unhealthy foods and beverages, front-of-pack traffic-light nutrition labeling, reductions of junk food and drink advertising to children, and school-based programmes to reduce television viewing and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (Lancet, 2011;378:1451).

If you care about public health evidence, that’s what it shows.  But doing these things goes against the business interests of food companies and they are doing everything they can to oppose such science-based measures.

In the U.S., the Sunlight Foundation has just released a report detailing the amounts of money food companies have spent on lobbying to block federal attempts to set nutritional standards for marketing foods to children (see previous posts).

Big companies such as Nestle, Kellogg, Viacom, McDonalds, General Mills, and Time Warner have indicated on official reports that they have lobbied on the controversial proposed guidelines; all together such companies have reported spending more than $37 million on lobbying this year.

The Sunlight report lists reported lobbying expenses (for example, Coca-Cola $4.7 million, General Mills $660,000).  It also points out that

…Over all public relations were handled by Anita Dunn, formerly communications director at the Obama White House, at the firm SKDKnickerbocker Consulting.

Anita Dunn is of special interest because of her previous position at the White House.  Now she’s working for the not-so-loyal opposition.  Marian Burros reported on this switch for Politico:

Dunn, who served as White House communications director, is a senior partner at SKDKnickerbocker Consulting, which is handling public relations for the food industry’s campaign. Switching sides isn’t uncommon in the incestuous world of Washington consulting and lobbying, and the food industry coalition seeking to scuttle the voluntary guidelines argues that they are actually enforceable regulations in disguise that could lead to billions in lost sales.

Dr. Horton’s comments in Lancet imply that the British government isn’t doing much better.

As for the European Union (EU),  Food Chemical News reported on December 8 that major food companies— McDonald’s, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Danone, Kellogg, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, as well as the European Snacks Associations—have just pledged to promote only healthful products on their websites aimed at children under age 12.

By “healthful,” they mean products that meet “better-for-you” criteria.  Food Chemical News cites a study suggesting that European children now see 79% less advertising of really bad junk foods on kids’ TV than they did in 2005, and 29% less across all TV programs.

The study did not say whether sales of those products were down too. If not, this could explain the willingness of companies to extend the voluntary restriction to websites aimed at very young children.

All of this would be much simpler for parents if governments paid attention to the research.  If they did, they would:

• Tax unhealthy foods and beverages
• Require traffic-light front-of-pack labels
• Stop junk food and drink advertising to children
• Institute programs to reduce television viewing
• Institute programs to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption

Taken together, these might actually make some progress in reducing childhood obesity.

My monthly (first Sunday) Food Matters column in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Q: What’s going on with the farm bill? Any chance for improving it?

A: I wish your question had an easier answer. The farm bill has to be American special-interest politics at its worst.

As Stacy Finz has been reporting in the main news and Business sections of The Chronicle, the failure of the recent super-deficit reduction plan also brought an end to a secret committee process for writing a new farm bill. Now Congress must follow its usual legislative procedures. The farm bill is again open for debate.

Advocacy is much in order. The farm bill is so enormous, covers so many programs, costs so much money and is so deeply irrational that no one brain – certainly not mine – can make sense of the whole thing.

It is all trees, no forest. The current bill, passed in 2008, is 663 pages of mind-numbing details about programs – hundreds of them – each with its own constituency and lobbyists.

The farm bill was designed originally to protect farmers against weather and other risks. But it grew piecemeal to include programs dealing with matters such as conservation, forestry, biofuels, organic production and international food aid.

The most controversial programs cover food commodities – corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton, sugar and dairy – but lesser-known provisions support smaller industries such as honey or Hass avocados.

The elephant in the farm bill is SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps). Fully 80 percent or more of farm bill expenditures go for SNAP.

This year, SNAP costs ran about $6 billion a month, and they are rising in today’s depressed economy. In contrast, commodity subsidies cost “only” about $8 billion a year. Crop insurance adds $4.5 billion, and conservation about $5 billion. Everything else runs in the millions, not billions, mere nothings in comparison to SNAP’s $70 billion 2011 expenditures.

SNAP judgements

What, you might ask, is SNAP doing in the farm bill? Think: logrolling.

Members of Congress who represent farm states need urban votes to pass subsidies. Urban members need farm votes to protect SNAP. This deal works, and both sides like the unsavory system just as it is.

As for irrationality: At a time when preventing obesity heads the public health agenda and reducing greenhouse gases is an international priority, the farm bill firmly protects the status quo.

It promotes production of commodities, but does little to link agricultural policy to policies that promote health or environmental protection. Although the Dietary Guidelines and MyPlate strongly promote consumption of fruits and vegetables, the farm bill inconsistently considers these foods as horticulture or specialty crops that do not merit subsidies or government-supported insurance. Indeed, many farm bill provisions discourage production of fruits and vegetables.

Overall, the farm bill must be seen as an inequitable means to protect the income of the largest and richest industrial producers of food commodities. It has little to do with serious efforts to protect conservation of natural resources, support rural communities or promote sustainable farming practices that maintain soil quality and mitigate climate change. Nor does it address the real needs of low-income communities.

The current bill favors large farms over small ones, intensive rather than sustainable production methods, and some states and regions over others. It actively promotes risk-taking; the government covers the costs.

It ignores food safety. It promotes production of inefficient biofuels. It does nothing to promote sustainable farming practices in this or any other country. And because it rewards farmers for overproducing commodities, it gets the United States in trouble with international trading partners.

Worst of all, the bill is inherently undemocratic. It is so opaque that nobody in Congress or anywhere else can possibly grasp its entirety. Its size and complexity make it especially vulnerable to influence by lobbyists for special interests and by the corporations most generous with campaign contributions.

Pro and con arguments

Its defenders argue that the present system works pretty well in ensuring productivity, global competitiveness and food security. Tinkering with it, they claim, will not make much difference and could do harm.

I disagree. It needs more than tinkering. Americans need farm policy to be brought into line with health and climate-change policy, and now is our chance.

Those of us who believe that food systems should be healthier for people and the planet have been handed an opportunity to rethink farm bill programs and to make the processes for its development more democratic.

Groups such as the Environmental Working Group ( www.ewg.org) and National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (sustainableagriculture.net) have been hard at work on these issues. Join them, speak up, and get busy.

This article appeared on page G – 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

A study released yesterday reports that so-called “better-for-you” (BFY) foods (those low in salt and sugar, high in fiber or with added vitamins, for example) may account for only about 40% of company sales, but they account for more than 70% of growth in sales.

Hudson Institute, October 2011

According to the press release accompanying the report, companies that sell BFY products “record stronger sales growth, higher operating profits, superior shareholder returns, and better company reputations than companies that sell fewer BFY products.”

The public health implications?  According to the report:

• Placing more emphasis on selling BFY foods and beverages is an effective pathway to improved sales, profits, shareholder returns, and reputation.
• Proof that bottom lines can benefit when companies have a greater percentage of sales from BFY foods could accelerate progress toward the development and marketing of more nutritious foods.
• Public health officials and policymakers need to be aware of food and beverage companies’ core business goals in order to work effectively with them to address the obesity epidemic.

I emphasize the third one because it sounds so much like a veiled threat.

I think it means that if public health officials want the food industry to make healthier food products, they better let food companies market their products any way they like:

• To children with no restrictions
• Using cartoons on packages of products aimed at children
• Using health claims with no restrictions
• Using front-of-package labels that emphasize “good-for-you” nutrients

Or else.

Or else what?  Just watch what the food industry will do (and is doing) whenever public health officials try to restrict advertising to children or demand that that companies put nutritional “negatives” on front-of-package labels.

Here’s CNN Health’s account (I’m quoted) and the one in the Wall Street Journal (I’m not).

As I mentioned in a previous post, the United Nations General Assembly met this month to consider resolutions about doing something to address rising rates of “non-communicable” diseases (i.e., chronic as opposed to infectious diseases such as obesity-related coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancers).

The Declaration adopted by the Assembly disappointed a consortium of 140 non-profit public health advocacy groups who issued a statement noting the conflicts of interest that occur when international agencies “partner” with companies that make products that contribute to an increase in disease risks.”

The consortium suggested actions that they hoped the U.N. would recommend, such as:

• Realign food policies for food and agricultural subsidies with sound nutrition science
• Mandate easy-to-understand front-of-pack nutrition labeling
• Ban the promotion of breast-milk substitutes and high-fat, -sugar and -salt foods to children and young people
• Prohibit advertising and brand sponsorship for alcohol beverages
• Increase taxes on alcohol beverages
• Expand nutritious school meal programs

The group also said that the U.N. should still work on:

• Developing tools to navigate the trade law barriers to health policy innovation,
•  Establishing disease-reduction targets and policy implementation schedules
• Instituting mechanisms to keep commercially self-interested parties at arms-length and public-interest groups constructively involved

Food companies and trade associations are actively involved in lobbying the U.N. not to do any of these things.  This consortium has much work to do.