By Jane Levine, Ed.D., Kids Can Make A Difference®

P.O. Box 54, Kittery Point, ME 03905, 207-439-9588, Jane.Levine@attbi.com
Presented at the Consuming Kids: Marketers’ Impact on Children’s Health Summit
Yale Club, New York City, September 20, 2002

I’m going to talk today about financial relationships between nutrition professionals and the food industry, and their impact on nutrition recommendations.

The goal of food companies (and food industry groups) is to increase consumption of their products. To help position their products as nutritious, food companies employ nutrition researchers.  They also recruit leading health and nutrition experts through offers of  financial support, such as research grants, consulting fees,  travel expenses to attend conferences, honoraria for speaking at conferences, and partnerships that target children.  And food companies  routinely sponsor conferences held by professional associations like the American Dietetic Association.  Such support is controversial because it may pose a conflict of interest.  But it is not new, and has led to the notion prevalent among nutrition and health professionals that good works and good business can comfortably mix.      

More than 80 years ago, the National Dairy Council decided to try what was then a novel approach to increasing consumption of dairy products.  The usual “strictly commercial effort” was to be replaced with what the Dairy Council termed  “a direct educational effort” focused largely on schoolchildren.¹  Leading nutritionists and health educators were recruited to attend conventions and meetings in their respective fields.  There, they praised the Council’s work and materials and advised cooperation and support of its program.  And Council representatives appeared on professional groups’ programs whenever the opportunity arose.  The Dairy Council, in effect, used health professionals and their associations to help market its products, and emerged as the leading developer of nutrition education materials (which inevitably showcased milk and other dairy products).

So began what has become a symbiotic relationship between nutrition professionals and the food industry.  In her book Food Politics, which delineates the food industry’s influence on health and nutrition, Marion Nestle notes that, in her own experience, “it is impossible for nutrition academics [today] not to be involved with food companies in one way or another.”² 

The American Dietetic Association’s financial relationships with the food industry offer flagrant examples of potential (if not actual) conflict of interest (www.eatright.org).  One of the Association’s “fact sheets”, titled Straight Facts About Beverage Choices, is supported by a grant from the National Soft Drink Association.  The fact sheet  is all about how soft drinks can fit into a healthful diet (after all, they contain water), and lumps soft drinks with water, milk and juice as a good source of fluids. Another fact sheet is sponsored by Gerber and, not surprisingly, emphasizes jarred baby food.  The fact sheet on Lactose Intolerance is supported by a grant from McNeil Consumer Products, distributors of Lactaid.  And so on.

The American Dietetic Association recently hosted a Public Policy Workshop in Washington, DC.³  There, an afternoon break was sponsored by Coca Cola.  A breakfast sponsored by candy manufacturer Mars, Inc featured a talk on “Obesity and Its Implications for Local Nutrition Policy.”

The Association’s upcoming annual meeting will feature many food industry sponsored sessions.  For instance:  The Gatorade Company (manufacturer of sports drinks) will sponsor a session titled Think Outside the Lunchbox: A Game Plan for Young Athletes.  Mars, Inc. and Procter & Gamble (maker of the fat substitute olestra) will co-sponsor a session called Environmental Solutions to the Obesity Epidemic.  And the National Dairy Council, arguably one of the most prolific in-school marketers, will sponsor a session on Commercialism in Schools. 

The notion of Mars, Inc. offering solutions to the obesity epidemic and the Dairy Council addressing in-school commercialism is so outrageous that it requires double-think to be viewed as acceptable.  

My own research indicates that the food industry’s efforts to influence health and nutrition professionals have had the desired effect.

Nutrition professionals I surveyed were aware of the food industry’s school-based marketing programs (almost all knew about the National Dairy Council’s materials).⁴  They thought that the programs would be likely to influence students’ food choices, that food companies should be able to offer nutrition information to students, and, most tellingly, that nutrition professionals should cultivate the food industry as an ally in getting nutrition messages to school children.

More recently, I and three colleagues examined the relationship between health professionals’ financial relationships with the food and beverage industry and their published positions on the safety and efficacy of the controversial fat substitute olestra.⁵  Procter & Gamble’s marketing campaign for olestra had included financial support of health professionals through “research grants, travel funds, honoraria, educational materials, samples, and meals.”⁶  The findings are embargoed until the study is published, so look for it in an upcoming edition of the American Journal of Public Health.   Meanwhile, I can tell you that the results will not surprise you.

With nutrition researchers and practitioners dependent on food industry funding, where does that leave consumers who seek to answer questions about the safety and usefulness of food products?   Unfortunately, it leaves us with the need to exercise exceptional caution. 

REFERENCES

1.  Munn MD.  Origin and Development of the National Dairy Council.  Unpublished report.  Chicago, IL: National Dairy Council, 1943.

2.  Nestle M.  Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.  Berkeley,

3.  American Dietetic Association.  Public Policy Workshop 2002 Agenda. 

4.  Levine J, Gussow JD.  Nutrition professionals’ knowledge of and attitudes toward the food industry’s education and marketing programs in elementary schools.  J Am Diet Assoc. 99(8):973-76, 1999.

5.  Levine J, Gussow JD, Hastings D, Eccher A.  Authors financial relationships with the food and beverage industry and their published positions on the fat substitute olestra.  Am J Public Health.  Forthcoming.

6.  Nestle M.  The selling of olestra. Public Health.  113(6):508-20, 1998.

CA: University of California Press, 2002.