Freethought Nation

By Adam Voiland Adam Voiland – Mon Oct 20

"Two nutrition experts argue that you can't take marketing campaigns at face value

With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices. In a study released earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese. Food giant PepsiCo, for example, points out on its website that "we can play an important role in helping kids lead healthier lives by offering healthy product choices in schools." The company highlights what it considers its healthier products within various food categories through a "Smart Spot" marketing campaign that features green symbols on packaging. PepsiCo's inclusive criteria--explained here--award spots to foods of dubious nutritional value such as Diet Pepsi, Cap'n Crunch cereal, reduced-fat Doritos, and Cheetos, as well as to more nutritious products such as Quaker Oatmeal and Tropicana Orange Juice.

But are wellness initiatives like Smart Spot just marketing ploys? Such moves by the food industry may seem to be a step in the right direction, but ultimately makers of popular junk foods have an obligation to stockholders to encourage kids to eat more--not less--of the foods that fuel their profits, says David Ludwig, a pediatrician and the co-author of a commentary published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that raises questions about whether big food companies can be trusted to help combat obesity. Ludwig and article co-author Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, both of whom have long histories of tracking the food industry, spoke with U.S. News and highlighted 10 things that junk food makers don't want you to know about their products and how they promote them.

1. Junk food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, food makers spend some $1.6 billion annually to reach children through the traditional media as well the Internet, in-store advertising, and sweepstakes. An article published in 2006 in the Journal of Public Health Policy puts the number as high as $10 billion annually. Promotions often use cartoon characters or free giveaways to entice kids into the junk food fold. PepsiCo has pledged that it will advertise only "Smart Spot" products to children under 12.

2. The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.
In fact, according to a review led by Ludwig of hundreds of studies that looked at the health effects of milk, juice, and soda, the likelihood of conclusions favorable to the industry was several times higher among industry-sponsored research than studies that received no industry funding. "If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science," he says.

3. Junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.
The American Dietetic Association, for example, accepts money from companies such as Coca-Cola, which get access to decision makers in the food and nutrition marketplace via ADA events and programs, as this release explains. As Nestle notes in her blog and discusses at length in her book Food Politics, the group even distributes nutritional fact sheets that are directly sponsored by specific industry groups. This one, for example, which is sponsored by an industry group that promotes lamb, rather unsurprisingly touts the nutritional benefits of lamb. The ADA's reasoning: "These collaborations take place with the understanding that ADA does not support any program or message that does not correspond with ADA's science-based healthful-eating messages and positions," according to the group's president, dietitian Martin Yadrick. "In fact, we think it's important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them."

4. More processing means more profits, but typically makes the food less healthy.
Minimally processed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables obviously aren't where food companies look for profits. The big bucks stem from turning government-subsidized commodity crops--mainly corn, wheat, and soybeans--into fast foods, snack foods, and beverages. High-profit products derived from these commodity crops are generally high in calories and low in nutritional value.

5. Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.
Fresh apples have an abundance of fiber and nutrients that are lost when they are processed into applesauce. And the added sugar or other sweeteners increase the number of calories without necessarily making the applesauce any more filling. Apple juice, which is even more processed, has had almost all of the fiber and nutrients stripped out. This same stripping out of nutrients, says Ludwig, happens with highly refined white bread compared with stone-ground whole wheat bread.

6. Many supposedly healthy replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.
In 2006, for example, major beverage makers agreed to remove sugary sodas from school vending machines. But the industry mounted an intense lobbying effort that persuaded lawmakers to allow sports drinks and vitamin waters that--despite their slightly healthier reputations--still can be packed with sugar and calories.

7. A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.
Health claims such as "zero trans fats" or "contains whole wheat" may create the false impression that a product is healthy when it's not. While the claims may be true, a product is not going to benefit your kid's health if it's also loaded with salt and sugar or saturated fat, say, and lacks fiber or other nutrients. "These claims are calorie distracters," adds Nestle. "They make people forget about the calories." Dave DeCecco, a spokesperson for PepsiCo, counters that the intent of a labeling program such as Smart Spot is simply to help consumers pick a healthier choice within a category. "We're not trying to tell people that a bag of Doritos is healthier than asparagus. But, if you're buying chips, and you're busy, and you don't have a lot of time to read every part of the label, it's an easy way to make a smarter choice," he says.

8. Food industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.
As Nestle explained in Food Politics, the food industry has a history of preferring scientific jargon to straight talk. As far back as 1977, public health officials attempted to include the advice "reduce consumption of meat" in an important report called Dietary Goals for the United States. The report's authors capitulated to intense pushback from the cattle industry and used this less-direct and more ambiguous advice: "Choose meats, poultry, and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Overall, says Nestle, the government has a hard time suggesting that people eat less of anything.

9. The food industry funds front groups that fight antiobesity public health initiatives.
Unless you follow politics closely, you wouldn't necessarily realize that a group with a name like the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has anything to do with the food industry. In fact,Ludwig and Nestle point out, this group lobbies aggressively against obesity-related public health campaigns--such as the one directed at removing junk food from schools--and is funded, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, primarily through donations from big food companies such as Coca-Cola, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and Wendy's.

10. The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.
According to the new JAMA article, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts that "[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons." Here's the group's entry on Marion Nestle.

The bottom line, says Nestle, is quite simple: Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/10things ... tyoutoknow

Absolutely Aaron.
Great points. There are so many tiers and levels of awareness when it comes to health.
One of my biggest concerns and indeed criticisms of the alternative media and conspiracy researchers is the complete disregard for understanding health.
Alex Jones is the epitome of this. Only recently has he even begun to realize the impacts of nutrition on health. I look all around me and I see people genuinely concerned about things and yet they are stuffing their faces with a cheeseburger and fries and pizza.
"Ohh but it's ORGANIC pizza."
"My beef is grass fed, I'm 'health conscious'."

Such rubbish. You know how Bill Maher has his "new rules" for various issues.
How bout some New Rules for nutrition:

New Rule: Stop pretending meat is healthy. I'm not saying we should never ever ever ever eat meat. But if we did, we wouldn't become weak frail and die. There is NO nutrient in meat that we cannot either produce ourselves in our bodies, or get from plants. NOT ONE.

New Rule: ALL DAIRY, is unhealthy and belongs nowhere in the human body. We, like our anthropoid ancestors, are designed to consume ONLY our mother's milk, and ONLY for a few years after birth, after which we get weened off and our natural diet then becomes fruits and vegetables for the rest of our lives.

New Rule: Gluten belongs nowhere in the human diet and should never be consumed. Just because you might not be "gluten intolerant" doesn't mean it's not going to damage you. If you drink poison everyday and don't have overt symptoms it doesn't mean it's good for you. It's still going to do it's damage. In a sense the "intolerant" ones are the lucky ones for this reason.

New Rule: Cooking our food no longer serves a purpose. When we as a species ventured out of our garden of eden, which happened to be in Africa when it was a healthy tropical fruit and veggie laden home, we indeed needed to survive and get energy any way we could. Due to our increased intelligence and brain capacity (which I and many others argue was due to entheogen usage) we were smart enough to figure out we could apply fire to certain foods to make them digestible. The side effect though, of eating a diet not native to our species was shortened life and the advent of disease. Plato and Socrates and the Hippocratic doctors were well aware of this and professed the need for a fruit and veggie diet, and the coming detriment in health due to the advent of agriculture and consuming animals and grains as a base for nutrition.

New Rule: Supplements are useless. They are formulated under the pretense that we are not eating enough fruits and veggies and thus need to supplement the lack of nutrition lost. They are also formulated under the pretense that our current fruits and veggies are far too lacking in nutrients than in times past.
The odd thing is, the very supplements which are being marketed to us by these people are extracted and produced from the very plants and fruits which are being accused of being so devoid.
Compound onto this the fact that we are SURE that there are hundreds of thousands of compounds and phytochemicals and compounds yet to be isolated and discovered...how can a supplement be in any way equivalent to eating the whole, raw, fruit or veggie? The answer is it cannot.
And if there was no money to be made, the obvious answer would not to be to supplement but to EAT MORE FRUITS AND VEGGIES.

New Rule: "complete protein" is a laughable idea. A piece of celery is a complete protein. It has all essential Amino Acids, and IN THE RIGHT RATIO, whereas meat has far too many SULFUR based amino acids (Methionine and Cystine) which cause disease in too high amounts, and that is WELL known.
I challenge anyone in the world to come up with a diet based on WHOLE FOODS of any sort to come up with a protein deficient diet. Cannot be done. If you ate nothing but bananas, oranges and romaine lettuce, as long as you ate enough calories, you would have all the essential amino acids, essential fatty acids and carbs to keep you going and living long.

I got more but I'll stop right there.