The Food Industry Wants the Public Confused About Nutrition

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

About five years ago, Denmark introduced “the world’s first tax on saturated fat. After only 15 months, however, the fat tax was abolished,” due to “massive” pressure from farming and food company interests. “Public health advocates are weak [when it comes to] tackling the issues of corporate power.” One “well-used approach for alcohol, tobacco, and [now more] food-related corporate interests is to shift the focus away from health. This involves reframing a fat or soft drinks tax as an issue of consumer rights and a debate over the role of the [‘nanny’] state in… restricting people’s choices.”

“The ‘Nanny State’ is…typically used [as] a pejorative [term] to discourage governments from introducing legislation or regulation that might undermine the power or actions of industry or individuals,” and has been regularly used to undermine public health efforts. But those complaining about the governmental manipulation of people’s choices tend to hypocritically be fine with corporations doing the same thing. One could argue that “public health is being undermined by ‘[the] Nanny Industry’ [that] uses fear of government regulation to maintain its own dominance” [and] profits and at…significant…cost to…public health.”

The tobacco industry offers the classic example, touting “personal responsibility,” which has a certain philosophical appeal. Look, as long as people understand the risks, they should be free to do whatever they want with their bodies. Now, some argue risk-taking affects others. But, if you have the right to put your own life at risk, shouldn’t you have the right to aggrieve your parents, widow your spouse, orphan your children? Then, there’s the social cost argument; people’s bad decisions can cost the society as a whole, whose tax dollars may have to care for them. “The independent, individualist [motorcyclist], helmetless and free on the open road, becomes the most dependent of individuals in the spinal injury ward.”

But, for the sake of argument, let’s forget these spillover effects, the so-called externalities. If someone understands the hazards, shouldn’t they be able to do whatever they want? First of all, this “assumes that [people] can access accurate and balanced information relevant to their decisions.” But, “[d]eliberate industry interference has often created situations where consumers have access only to incomplete and inaccurate information.” “For decades, tobacco companies successfully suppressed or undermined scientific evidence of smoking’s dangers and down played the public health concerns…” Don’t worry your little head, said the nanny companies. Decades of deception and manipulation, deliberate targeting of children, marketing and selling their lethal products with zeal, and without regard for the unfolding human tragedy.

So, “[t]he tobacco industry’s deliberate strategy of challenging scientific evidence undermines smokers’ ability to understand the harms smoking poses,” and so, undermines the whole concept that “smoking is [a fully-]informed choice.” “Tobacco companies have denied smokers truthful information,” yet, at the same time, hold smokers accountable “for incurring diseases that will cause half of them to die prematurely.” So, “in contexts such as these, government intervention [may be] vital to protect consumers from predatory industries.”

And, is the food industry any different? “The public is bombarded with information and it is hard to tell which is true, which is false, and which is merely exaggerated. Foods are sold without clarity about the nutritional content or harmful effects.” Remember how the food industry spent a billion dollars making sure the easy-to-understand “traffic light labelling” system on food never saw the light of day, and was replaced by indecipherable this? That’s ten times more than the drug industry spends on lobbying in the U.S. It’s in the food industry’s interest to have the public confused about nutrition.

How confused are we about nutrition? “Head Start teachers are responsible for providing nutrition education to over [a] million low-income children [every year].” A hundred and eighty-one Head Start teachers were put to the test. And, only about four out of 181 “answered at least four [out] of the five nutrition knowledge questions correctly.” Most, for example, could not correctly answer the question, “Which has the most calories: protein, carbohydrate, or fat?” Not a single one could answer all five nutrition questions correctly. While they valued nutrition education, “54%…agreed that it was hard to know which nutrition information to believe.” And, the food industry wants to keep it that way. A quarter of the teachers didn’t consume any fruit or vegetables the previous day, though half did have french fries and a soda, and a quarter consumed fried meat the day before. Not surprisingly, 55% of the teachers were not just overweight, but obese.

So, when even the teachers are confused, something must be done. No purveyor of unhealthy products wants the public to know the truth. “An [incredible] example comes from the US ‘Fairness Doctrine’ and the tobacco advertising experience of the 1960s. Before tobacco advertising was banned from television…, a court ruling in 1967 required that tobacco companies funded one health ad about smoking for every four tobacco TV advertisements” they put on. “Rather than face this corrective advertising, the tobacco industry took their own advertising off television.” They knew they couldn’t compete with the truth. Just “the threat of corrective advertising even on a one-to-four basis was sufficient to make [the] tobacco companies withdraw their own advertising.” They needed to keep the public in the dark.

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Image credit: Ed Schipul via Flickr. Image has been modified.

• alcohol
• animal products
• children
• fat
• french fries
• fruit
• industry influence
• junk food
• meat
• nutrition myths
• obesity
• processed foods
• saturated fat
• smoking
• soda
• tobacco
• vegetables