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Obesity Blame Falls on Food Industry

Posted on: Wednesday, 29 March 2006, 03:03 CST

It's tempting to blame big food companies for America's big obesity problem.

After all, they're the folks who Supersized our fries, family- portioned our potato chips and Big Gulped our sodas. There's also the billions they've spent keeping their products ever on our minds and in our mouths.

Likened by some to the way tobacco companies seduced smokers, such practices have made the food industry the target of lawsuits and legislation seeking to yank junk food from schools and curb advertising to children.

But some experts say neither the problem nor the solution is nearly so simple.

"You don't have the collusion or the coverup you had in smoking," said James Tillotson, a business and food policy professor at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition. "We want to blame somebody, but the thing is, we're all a part of it."

Sure, companies set the stage with cheap, calorie-dense foods. But government also has propped up agribusiness, the medical community was slow to take on obesity and good nutrition, and consumers seem determined to move less and eat more, said Mr. Tillotson, a former food industry executive.

How much of that burden of blame belongs to the food industry can be difficult to answer.

THE FOOD INDUSTRY emerged at a time when malnutrition was the nation's chief dietary concern. But at some point food became too plentiful, a change that altered the culture of the American diet.

Yale obesity expert David Katz says that's because companies aggressively peddle food to people who don't need it.

Food industry officials prefer to call it consumer choice.

"We don't think the food industry has done anything particularly wrong in this regard," said Robert Earl of the Food Products Association, a lobbying group that prefers to indict sedentary lifestyles and poor choices.

Companies have tried to help people make better choices, he says, offering healthier products and more nutrition data. But people can't be forced to make the right choice, and consumer disinterest doomed many of those products.

He's right. Consumers bear much responsibility for their weight and the fact that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. It's not the industry's fault people don't get exercise, or that schools have cut physical education, or that people prefer the taste of Twinkies (500 million sold a year) to tofu (much less).

But critics call Mr. Earl's assessment disingenuous. Personal responsibility has limits in the face of a multibillion-dollar marketing whirlwind pushing countless high-calorie treats.

"They (food companies) are putting $36 billion into directing those choices," said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University and critic of the food industry. "And their methods are very effective."

Meanwhile, efforts to market the healthier products Mr. Earl spoke of historically have been lackluster, acknowledges Brock Leach, an executive for new products at PepsiCo Inc.

As for nutrition data, it isn't always helpful. And attempts to standardize or clarify labeling still meet resistance.

Personal responsibility also falters when it comes to children, who are bombarded by junk food ads that undermine parents.

Such tactics make it tougher to teach good eating habits to children who equate food with entertainment, said Dr. Susan Lynch, a child obesity physician and the wife of New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch.

IN MANY WAYS, the food industry is chasing a moving target. For years, food production was a better understood science than nutrition. And so whole grains were abandoned and hydrogenated fats embraced.

The medical community takes much of the blame, said Dr. George Blackburn of Harvard Medi-cal School's nutrition division.

"We didn't even put nutrition in the medical curriculum except in the last 30 or 40 years," he said. "As soon as we got drugs, to hell with nutrition. We're just now getting it to be a professional responsibility to be sensitive to people's healthy eating."

Today, the food industry suffers from nutrition research overload, with tidal waves of new and sometimes contradictory health findings that strain its ability to produce appealing foods that are in sync with the latest science.

Even when companies succeed, they still are susceptible to scientific surprises that can break a business.

When saturated fat was the enemy, companies reformulated their products, says Grocery Man-u-facturers Association spokeswoman Stephanie Childs. Only later did they learn that the trans fats they had replaced them with were even worse.

Whatever the food industry's share of the blame, Mr. Tillotson, the Tufts professor, says obesity lawsuits are inappropriate and Congress is considering a measure to bar them. Food companies were asked to feed a hungry nation; suing now penalizes them for doing so, he says.

Industry officials contend lawsuits divert resources from efforts to educate consumers and to produce healthier foods. Market demand and a sense of social responsibility are better catalysts for change, they say.

Though critics applaud recent changes in how food is made and advertised, they say industry goodwill and consumer demand aren't reliable enough.

The realities of competition can push goodwill aside and consumers can't be counted on to want what's good for them, they say.

That's why Richard Daynard, the director of the obesity and law project at Northeastern Univer-sity School of Law in Boston, says lawsuits still are needed as part of a larger assessment of the obesity epidemic.

"You can't get to a solution until you get a diagnosis. If you don't see the role of the junk food industry in causing the problem and in continuing to maintain the problem, you've missed a big part of the diagnosis," said Mr. Daynard, who is leading a soda industry lawsuit.

Ellen Van Gelder, an obese 41-year-old health care worker from Concord, N.H., doesn't need a lawsuit to make her diagnosis.

Though she disapproves of many marketing methods and wishes food companies would make it easier to eat healthier, ultimate responsibility for her weight is her own, she says.

"I would love to blame somebody else. The reality is it's each person's responsibility," she said. "You put the food on your plate. You choose whether to eat it."

Source: Augusta Chronicle, The

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