Childhood Obesity

August 14, 2005

JoAnn Guest <angelprincessjo

Junk Food Nation: Who's to Blame for

Childhood Obesity?

Junk Food Nation: Who's to Blame for Childhood

Obesity? JoAnn Guest

Aug 13, 2005 18:11 PDT

By Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor

The Nation

29 August 2005 Issue

In recent months the major food companies have been

trying hard to

convince Americans that they feel the pain of our

expanding waistlines,

especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it

would no longer

market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoted

itself as a salad

producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kids

under 12.

But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with the

junk food giants

pushing the Bush Administration to defend their

interests. The recent

conflict over what America eats, and the way the

government promotes

food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush's America

corporate

interests trump public health, public opinion and

plain old common

sense.

The latest salvo in the war on added sugar and fat

came July 14-15,

when

the Federal Trade Commission held hearings on

childhood obesity and

food

marketing. Despite the fanfare, industry had no cause

for concern; FTC

chair Deborah Majoras had declared beforehand that the

commission will

do absolutely nothing to stop the rising flood of junk

food advertising

to children.

In June the Department of Agriculture denied a request

from our group

Commercial Alert to enforce existing rules forbidding

mealtime sales in

school cafeterias of " foods of minimal nutritional

value " - i.e., junk

foods and soda pop.

The department admitted that it didn't know whether

schools are

complying with the rules, but, frankly, it doesn't

give a damn. " At

this

time, we do not intend to undertake the activities or

measures

recommended in your petition, " wrote Stanley Garnett,

head of the

USDA's

Child Nutrition Division.

Conflict about junk food has intensified since late

2001, when a

Surgeon

General's report called obesity an " epidemic. " Since

that time, the

White House has repeatedly weighed in on the side of

Big Food. It

worked

hard to weaken the World Health Organization's global

anti-obesity

strategy and went so far as to question the scientific

basis for " the

linking of fruit and vegetable consumption to

decreased risk of obesity

and diabetes. "

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy

Thompson - then our

nation's top public-health officer - even told members

of the Grocery

Manufacturers Association to " 'go on the offensive'

against critics

blaming the food industry for obesity, " according to a

November 12,

2002, GMA news release.

Last year, during the reauthorization of the

children's nutrition

programs, Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald of

Illinois attempted to

insulate the government's nutrition guidelines from

the intense

industry

pressure that has warped the process to date.

He proposed a modest amendment to move the guidelines

from the USDA to

the comparatively more independent Institute of

Medicine. The food

industry, alarmed about the switch, secured a number

of meetings at the

White House to get it to exert pressure on Fitzgerald.

One irony of this fight was that the key industry

lobbying came from

the

American Dietetic Association, described by one

Congressional staffer

as

a " front for the food groups. " Fitzgerald held firm

but didn't succeed

in enacting his amendment before he left Congress last

year.

By that time the industry's lobbying effort had borne

fruit, or perhaps

more accurately, unhealthy alternatives to fruit.

The new federal guidelines no longer contain a

recommendation for sugar

intake, although they do tell people to eat foods with

few added

sugars.

The redesigned icon for the guidelines, created by a

company that does

extensive work for the junk food industry, shows no

food, only a person

climbing stairs.

Growing industry influence is also apparent at the

President's Council

on Physical Fitness. What companies has the government

invited to be

partners with the council's Challenge program?

Coca-Cola, Burger King,

General Mills, Pepsico and other blue chip members of

the " obesity

lobby. "

In January the council's chair, former NFL star Lynn

Swann, took money

to appear at a public relations event for the National

Automatic

Merchandising Association, a vending machine trade

group activists have

been battling on in-school sales of junk food.

Not a lot of subtlety is required to understand what's

driving

Administration policy. It's large infusions of cash.

In 2004 " Rangers, "

who bundled at least $200,000 each to the Bush/Cheney

campaign,

included

Barclay Resler, vice president for government and

public affairs at

Coca-Cola; Robert Leebern Jr., president of federal

affairs at Troutman

Sanders PAG, lobbyist for Coca-Cola; Richard Hohlt of

Hohlt & Co.,

lobbyist for Altria, which owns about 85 percent of

Kraft foods; and

José " Pepe " Fanjul, president, vice chairman and COO

of Florida

Crystals

Corp., one of the nation's major sugar producers.

Hundred-thousand-dollar men include Kirk Blalock and

Marc Lampkin, both

Coke lobbyists, and Joe Weller, chairman and CEO,

Nestle USA. Altria

also gave $250,000 to Bush's inauguration this year,

and Coke and Pepsi

gave $100,000 each.

These gifts are in addition to substantial sums given

during the 2000

campaign.

For their money, the industry has been able to buy

into a strategy on

obesity and food marketing that mirrors the approach

taken by Big

Tobacco. That's hardly a surprise, given that some of

the same

companies

and personnel are involved: Junk food giants Kraft and

Nabisco are both

majority-owned by tobacco producer Philip Morris, now

renamed Altria.

Similarity number one is the denial that the problem

(obesity) is

caused

by the product (junk food).

Instead, lack of exercise is fingered as the culprit,

which is why

McDonald's, Pepsi, Coke and others have been handing

out pedometers,

funding fitness centers and prodding kids to move

around.

When the childhood obesity issue first burst on the

scene, HHS and the

Centers for Disease Control funded a bizarre ad

campaign called Verb,

whose ostensible purpose was to get kids moving. This

strategy has been

evident in the halls of Congress as well.

During child nutrition reauthorization hearings, the

man some have

called the Senator from Coca-Cola, Georgia's Zell

Miller, parroted

industry talking points when he claimed that children

are " obese not

because of what they eat at lunchrooms in schools but

because, frankly,

they sit around on their duffs watching Eminem on MTV

and playing video

games. " And that, of course, is the fault not of food

marketers but of

parents.

Miller's office shut down a Senate Agriculture

Committee staff

discussion of a ban on soda pop in high schools by

refreshing their

memories that Coke is based in Georgia.

A related ploy is to deny the nutritional status of

individual food

groups, claiming that there are no " good " or " bad "

foods, and that all

that matters is balance. So, for example, when the

Administration

attacked the WHO's global anti-obesity initiative, it

criticized what

it

called the " unsubstantiated focus on 'good' and 'bad'

foods. "

Of course, if fruits and vegetables aren't healthy,

then Coke and chips

aren't unhealthy.

While such a strategy is so preposterous as to be

laughable, it is

already having real effects.

Less than a month after Cadbury Schweppes, the candy

and soda company,

gave a multimillion-dollar grant to the American

Diabetes Association,

the association's chief medical and scientific officer

claimed that

sugar has nothing to do with diabetes, or with weight.

Industry has also bankrolled front groups like the

Center for Consumer

Freedom, an increasingly influential Washington outfit

that demonizes

public-health advocates as the " food police " and

promotes the industry

point of view.

Meanwhile, public opinion is solidly behind more

restrictions on junk

food marketing aimed at children, especially in

schools. A February

Wall

Street Journal poll found that 83 percent of American

adults believe

" public schools need to do a better job of limiting

children's access

to

unhealthy foods like snack foods, sugary soft drinks

and fast food. "

Two bills recently introduced in Congress,

Massachusetts Senator Ted

Kennedy's Prevention of Childhood Obesity Act and Iowa

Senator Tom

Harkin's Healthy Lifestyles and Prevention (HeLP)

America Act, both

place significant restrictions on the ability of junk

food producers to

market in schools.

Interestingly, this is a crossover issue between red

and blue states.

Concern about obesity and excessive junk food

marketing to kids is

shared by people across the political spectrum, and

some conservatives,

such as Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs and

the Eagle

Forum's

Phyllis Schlafly, as well as California Governor

Arnold Schwarzenegger,

have argued for restricting junk food marketing to

children. This may

be

one of the reasons New York Senator Hillary Clinton

has once again

become vocal on the topic of marketing to children,

although Senator

Clinton has called not for government intervention but

merely for

industry self-regulation, requesting that the

companies " be more

responsible about the effect they are having " -

exactly the policy the

industry wants.

A vigorous government response would clearly garner

the sympathy of the

majority of Americans.

The growing chasm between what the public wants and

the

Administration's

protection of the profits of Big Food is a powerful

example of the

decline of democracy in this country.

Let them eat chips!

-------

_________________

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

_________________________

August 27, 2005

I also do work with children and weight loss. There is a pediatric fitness center just a couple of blocks from my house, the first I've ever seen. It's sad. I believe the statistics are now that one in four children in the U.S. is considered clinically obese. It's amazing how our government covers the butts of companies like the junk food and pop (soda, if you're not from Michigan!) companies, as well as the pharmaceutical companies, as was mentioned in the other post on autism, as well as medical insurance companies and the list goes on and on. A little education to the general public prevents them from being able to be sued by people that they've really hurt. And sugar has nothing to do with diabetes or weight?!!! Just what kind of idiots do these idiots really think we are? Childhood obesity and obesity in general is not only an epidemic in our country, but an epidemic of catastrophic proportions! It should be an issue we all concern ourselves with. The prejudice

against obese people is just rediculous and they suffer alot of mental illnesses because of the prejudice, damage to their self esteem, etc. And when they get depressed, most of them tend to eat for comfort. Then they eat the fast foods or the convenient packaged chemicals, I like to call them! And everybody and his brother is out there trying to make a buck off the desperation of these people wanting to lose weight. They are preyed upon and scammed which just escalates their weight problem and depression. I tried for 12 years to lose weight. I fell victim to alot of the scams. The weight loss is actually how I found my First Fitness supplements that saved my life from the cancer. It was easy with detoxification and proper nutrition. I don't know of any other weight loss programs that address the issue of detoxification for weight loss. And it is so vitally important, especially with the liver, which metabolizes fat and the colon, which is a major part of the

digestive system.

Great info, Kel, again, as usual. I've been helping people lose weight with nutrition for much longer than I have promoted nutrition for any other health issues, like my cancer.

Blessings, Renee"Kelly W." <kellykebby wrote:

JoAnn Guest <angelprincessjoJunk Food Nation: Who's to Blame forChildhood Obesity?Junk Food Nation: Who's to Blame for ChildhoodObesity? JoAnn Guest Aug 13, 2005 18:11 PDT By Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor The Nation 29 August 2005 Issue In recent months the major food companies have beentrying hard to convince Americans that they feel the pain of ourexpanding waistlines, especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced itwould no longer market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoteditself as a salad producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kidsunder 12. But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with thejunk food giants pushing the Bush Administration to defend theirinterests. The recent

conflict over what America eats, and the way thegovernment promotes food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush's Americacorporate interests trump public health, public opinion andplain old common sense. The latest salvo in the war on added sugar and fatcame July 14-15, when the Federal Trade Commission held hearings onchildhood obesity and food marketing. Despite the fanfare, industry had no causefor concern; FTC chair Deborah Majoras had declared beforehand that thecommission will do absolutely nothing to stop the rising flood of junkfood advertising to children. In June the Department of Agriculture denied a requestfrom our group Commercial Alert to enforce existing rules forbiddingmealtime sales in school cafeterias of "foods of minimal nutritionalvalue" - i.e., junk foods and soda pop. The department admitted that it didn't know whetherschools are

complying with the rules, but, frankly, it doesn'tgive a damn. "At this time, we do not intend to undertake the activities ormeasures recommended in your petition," wrote Stanley Garnett,head of the USDA's Child Nutrition Division. Conflict about junk food has intensified since late2001, when a Surgeon General's report called obesity an "epidemic." Sincethat time, the White House has repeatedly weighed in on the side ofBig Food. It worked hard to weaken the World Health Organization's globalanti-obesity strategy and went so far as to question the scientificbasis for "the linking of fruit and vegetable consumption todecreased risk of obesity and diabetes." Former Health and Human Services Secretary TommyThompson - then our nation's top public-health officer - even told membersof the Grocery Manufacturers Association to "'go on the offensive'against critics

blaming the food industry for obesity," according to aNovember 12, 2002, GMA news release. Last year, during the reauthorization of thechildren's nutrition programs, Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald ofIllinois attempted to insulate the government's nutrition guidelines fromthe intense industry pressure that has warped the process to date. He proposed a modest amendment to move the guidelinesfrom the USDA to the comparatively more independent Institute ofMedicine. The food industry, alarmed about the switch, secured a numberof meetings at the White House to get it to exert pressure on Fitzgerald.One irony of this fight was that the key industrylobbying came from the American Dietetic Association, described by oneCongressional staffer as a "front for the food groups." Fitzgerald held firmbut didn't succeed in enacting his amendment before he left Congress

lastyear. By that time the industry's lobbying effort had bornefruit, or perhaps more accurately, unhealthy alternatives to fruit. The new federal guidelines no longer contain arecommendation for sugar intake, although they do tell people to eat foods withfew added sugars. The redesigned icon for the guidelines, created by acompany that does extensive work for the junk food industry, shows nofood, only a person climbing stairs. Growing industry influence is also apparent at thePresident's Council on Physical Fitness. What companies has the governmentinvited to be partners with the council's Challenge program?Coca-Cola, Burger King, General Mills, Pepsico and other blue chip members ofthe "obesity lobby." In January the council's chair, former NFL star LynnSwann, took money to appear at a public relations event for the NationalAutomatic Merchandising

Association, a vending machine tradegroup activists have been battling on in-school sales of junk food. Not a lot of subtlety is required to understand what'sdriving Administration policy. It's large infusions of cash.In 2004 "Rangers," who bundled at least $200,000 each to the Bush/Cheneycampaign, included Barclay Resler, vice president for government andpublic affairs at Coca-Cola; Robert Leebern Jr., president of federalaffairs at Troutman Sanders PAG, lobbyist for Coca-Cola; Richard Hohlt ofHohlt & Co., lobbyist for Altria, which owns about 85 percent ofKraft foods; and José "Pepe" Fanjul, president, vice chairman and COOof Florida Crystals Corp., one of the nation's major sugar producers. Hundred-thousand-dollar men include Kirk Blalock andMarc Lampkin, both Coke lobbyists, and Joe Weller, chairman and CEO,Nestle USA. Altria also gave $250,000 to Bush's

inauguration this year,and Coke and Pepsi gave $100,000 each. These gifts are in addition to substantial sums givenduring the 2000 campaign. For their money, the industry has been able to buyinto a strategy on obesity and food marketing that mirrors the approachtaken by Big Tobacco. That's hardly a surprise, given that some ofthe same companies and personnel are involved: Junk food giants Kraft andNabisco are both majority-owned by tobacco producer Philip Morris, nowrenamed Altria. Similarity number one is the denial that the problem(obesity) is caused by the product (junk food). Instead, lack of exercise is fingered as the culprit,which is why McDonald's, Pepsi, Coke and others have been handingout pedometers, funding fitness centers and prodding kids to movearound. When the childhood obesity issue first burst on thescene, HHS and the Centers for

Disease Control funded a bizarre adcampaign called Verb, whose ostensible purpose was to get kids moving. Thisstrategy has been evident in the halls of Congress as well. During child nutrition reauthorization hearings, theman some have called the Senator from Coca-Cola, Georgia's ZellMiller, parroted industry talking points when he claimed that childrenare "obese not because of what they eat at lunchrooms in schools butbecause, frankly, they sit around on their duffs watching Eminem on MTVand playing video games." And that, of course, is the fault not of foodmarketers but of parents. Miller's office shut down a Senate AgricultureCommittee staff discussion of a ban on soda pop in high schools byrefreshing their memories that Coke is based in Georgia. A related ploy is to deny the nutritional status ofindividual food groups, claiming that there are no "good" or

"bad"foods, and that all that matters is balance. So, for example, when theAdministration attacked the WHO's global anti-obesity initiative, itcriticized what it called the "unsubstantiated focus on 'good' and 'bad'foods." Of course, if fruits and vegetables aren't healthy,then Coke and chips aren't unhealthy. While such a strategy is so preposterous as to belaughable, it is already having real effects. Less than a month after Cadbury Schweppes, the candyand soda company, gave a multimillion-dollar grant to the AmericanDiabetes Association, the association's chief medical and scientific officerclaimed that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes, or with weight.Industry has also bankrolled front groups like theCenter for Consumer Freedom, an increasingly influential Washington outfitthat demonizes public-health advocates as the "food police" andpromotes the

industry point of view. Meanwhile, public opinion is solidly behind morerestrictions on junk food marketing aimed at children, especially inschools. A February Wall Street Journal poll found that 83 percent of Americanadults believe "public schools need to do a better job of limitingchildren's access to unhealthy foods like snack foods, sugary soft drinksand fast food." Two bills recently introduced in Congress,Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's Prevention of Childhood Obesity Act and IowaSenator Tom Harkin's Healthy Lifestyles and Prevention (HeLP)America Act, both place significant restrictions on the ability of junkfood producers to market in schools. Interestingly, this is a crossover issue between redand blue states. Concern about obesity and excessive junk foodmarketing to kids is shared by people across the political spectrum, andsome conservatives,

such as Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs andthe Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, as well as California GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger, have argued for restricting junk food marketing tochildren. This may be one of the reasons New York Senator Hillary Clintonhas once again become vocal on the topic of marketing to children,although Senator Clinton has called not for government intervention butmerely for industry self-regulation, requesting that thecompanies "be more responsible about the effect they are having" -exactly the policy the industry wants. A vigorous government response would clearly garnerthe sympathy of the majority of Americans. The growing chasm between what the public wants andthe Administration's protection of the profits of Big Food is a powerfulexample of the decline of democracy in this country. Let them eat chips!

-------_________________JoAnn Guest mrsjo- www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes AIM Barleygreen "Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future" http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html _________________________