How Big Food uses doctors to feed the public skewed nutritional science.
HOW THE FOOD INDUSTRY PROMOTES FALSE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR OUR HEALTH
Children who eat candy tend to have a healthier body weight than those who do not. All foods supply calories and there is no difference between the calories that come from sugar or steak or grapefruit or ice cream.
Look for the Heart and Stroke Health Check Logo to ensure you’re making healthy choices for you and your family.
Exercise is to blame for obesity, not bad diets.
These are just some of the nutritional facts promoted by the food industry.
“The food industry funds initiatives that it thinks will further the sale of its products,” says Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, who sparked debate over the f ood i ndustry’s involvement in the former Heart and Stroke Health Check program when he discovered that its logo was available for companies to purchase for $ 20,000 and criticized the program for being a violation of public trust. “Industry’s job is not to fund scientific research, it’s to protect products and improve sales.”
For decades food companies have paid doctors and academic authorities to conduct research and promote nutritional i nformation. Funded research remains one of the food industry’s most powerful marketing tactics. When a doctor or medical journal publicizes nutritional information, it does not feel like advertising. Privately funded research has the unique skill of turning marketing into facts.
An analysis of beverage studies published in the journal PLOS Medicine in 2013 found that studies funded by Coca- Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts. According to a paper published last year in the journal Research Integrity and Peer Review, conflicts of interest remain under- reported, inconsistently described and difficult to access.
The American Society for Nutrition and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics have each been criticized by public health advocates for forming partnerships with Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Hershey’s.
Meanwhile, dietitians have been f ound t aking payments from Coca- Cola to plug the company’s soda as a healthy snack. In 2015, The New York Times obtained emails that revealed Coca- Cola had funded res earch t hat s hif t ed t he blame for obesity from bad diets to exercise. The beverage company provided financial support to scientists who spread the message that exercise is more important than sugar consumption for weight management in medical journals, at conferences and through social media. As author Gary Taubes notes i n The New York Times, Coca- Cola’s funded claims are false. Scientists have recognized sugar as a particu- larly harmful calorie — due to its unique composition of glucose and fructose, which encourages fat storage in the body — since the 1960s. Nevertheless, Coke persisted.
More recently, The Associated Press obtained emails showing how a trade association representing the makers of Butterfinger, Hershey’s and Skittles funded studies showing that children who eat candy tend to have a healthier body weight than those who do not.
In a section about the s t udy’s l i mitations, t he paper’s authors conceded that the data “may not reflect usual intake” and “cause and effect associations cannot be drawn.” The candy association’s press release did not mention these limitations as it declared: “New study shows children and adolescents who eat candy are less overweight or obese.”
This lack of transparency has been going on for dec- ades. In 1967, the sugar industry paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about US$ 50,000 in today’s dollars to conduct research that proved sugar did not cause heart disease, according to an article published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine last year. The research, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, concluded there were major problems with other studies that found sugar to be harmful to human health — and it did not disclosure the sugar industry’s funding.
At best, these industryfunded studies contribute to a murky sea of nutritional advice. In the never- ending quest to eat healthy, you may have at one point wondered if all calories are, in fact, created equal. How important is exercise in weight management? And are foods that advertise a healthy logo like the Heart and Stroke Health Check actually better than those that do not?
For these questions we have the food industry to thank.
“There is a lot of confusion about nutrition today, and i ndustry- f unded research has definitely contributed to it,” says Cristin Kearns, co-author of the article in JAMA Internal Medicine exposing the payoff of the Harvard scientists by the sugar industry.
However, due to increasing competition for research grants, proponents argue that industry-funded studies are critical for advancing nutritional science.
“The struggle for grant money is very real,” says Dr. Freedhoff. “If the only person who’s gonna fund you is the food industry because you didn’t get your grant this year — it’s pretty hard to tell someone not to take that money, because their livelihood and career are in question. It’s not about being principled. It’s about doing your job and wanting to do good research.”
But after the research is finished and the press releases have been sent, it’s the public that’s left to deal with the fallout from skewed nutritional science. Today we continue to deal with the aftermath of the “calorie is a calorie” argument in the form of rising sugar consumption and exponentially growing rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease — conditions that many experts attribute to sugar consumption.
As long as health authorities persist in taking money from and forming relationships with big food businesses — which they undoubtedly will — we should be wary of the information they choose to serve. Dietitians should not promote CocaCola as a sensible snack. Sugar should not be pardoned for the obesity crisis. Health logos should not be available to the highest bidder.
Disclosure is important, but it’s not a complete solution to a nutritional community that has failed us. It’s also important that we recognize the downfalls of our medical authorities. Eating healthy should not be complicated, but it will be for as long as medicine stays in the pockets of Big Food.