By Dr. Mercola
Can you rely on the government to provide objective,
health-promoting dietary advice via the food guide now known as
MyPlate? The short answer to that question is “No.” The
reality of how government bows to food-industry interests is
shocking, and most certainly plays a role in the obesity
epidemic.
How about registered dieticians (RDs)? Surely you can trust
their advice? After all, their specialty is nutrition
and food science.
Disturbingly, a recent report exposing the deep conflicts of
interest between the processed food industry and the trade
organization for food- and nutrition professionals in the US
shatters any illusion you may have had that RDs are the
go-to source for well-researched, science-based nutrition advice
that will improve your health...
The report, aptly titled: And Now a Word from Our
Sponsors... Are America’s Nutrition Professionals in the Pocket
of Big Food?1
is written by Michele Simon, who has practiced public health law
as long as I’ve been doing this site — about 17 years.
Many of you may not be aware that public health law even
exists as a specialty, but it does. Michele has been a real
white-hat advocate for public health, developing strategies to
fight corporate tactics that deceive and manipulate you.
Michele’s motivation for entering into public health law
began with her own foray into eating a plant-based diet and
learning more about the impact of nutrition on health.
“I realized that there weren’t many people at that
time making the connection between what we eat and our
government policies,” she says. “I look at the
politics of food and then apply my legal background to
expose the various ways the industry influences our
government policies and so forth.”
Her most recent exposé involves the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics (formerly known as the American Dietetic Association),
and the corporate politics involved in making public dietary
recommendations.
It all began with people sending her photos of all the big
junk food companies exhibiting their wares at the Academy’s
annual meetings, showing her there was a problem going on. Two
years ago, Michele decided to investigate the situation, which
turned out to be an eye-opening experience:
“You walk into this expo show floor, and you think
you’re in the wrong place. You think you can’t possibly be
in a nutrition conference. It actually looks like one big
junk food expo,” she says.
“After that first year of writing about it (an
article on the influence of the various presenters there), I
took a much deeper dive over the last six months or so to
really uncover exactly how these relationships work between
the major junk food companies and this very influential
trade group.”
Why are Dieticians and Nutritionists Sponsored by Junk Food
Companies?
As Michele discovered, food companies like Coca-Cola, General
Mills, Nestlé, Kraft, and all of the major junk food purveyors
buy sponsorships to be at the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics’ annual trade organization meetings. They typically
end up having the largest booths on the expo floor. Besides
showcasing their food products, they’re also allowed to sponsor
or hold educational sessions at the meeting.
According to Michele, Nestlé paid $50,000 for the benefit of
doing a special session in which they talked about optimum
hydration, for example.
“It’s probably no coincidence that Nestlé is also the
largest bottled water company in the world,” she says.
“So, it’s basically a pay-to-play operation, where these
companies pay big money. In exchange, they also get to teach
registered dieticians (RDs) for continuing education units.
So, the RD’s who are there to make sure they get
their continuing education units can do that by learning
about optimum hydration from the nation’s biggest bottled
water company. And that’s just one example.”
Coca-Cola also sponsors ongoing educational webinars
year-round. So, to get CEU’s, registered dieticians can be
“educated” by Coca-cola on the virtues of aspartame, for
example, and that sugar in children’s diet is okay “in
moderation.” According to Michele, these ongoing integral
relationships between major food companies and the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics (which is the world's largest trade
group organization of food and nutrition professionals)
represent HUGE conflicts of interest.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics represent 74,000 of
the nation’s health professionals whose job it is to help
Americans to eat right. At each annual meeting, as many as
13,000 registered dieticians are in attendance.
“Some have been in the profession for a while. Some
are students – young and impressionable. This is a huge
meeting that happens every single year, where these
companies get to show off their latest,
slightly-better-for-you junk food, and teach these RDs
[about nutrition],” she says.
Americans are Clearly Being Given the Wrong Message about
Nutrition
Most physicians, as most people reading this know, don’t
receive much training in nutrition, if any. So typically, a
physician who is really busy in his practice and doesn’t feel
it’s worth the time, effort, and energy to counsel his patients
on nutrition will refer them to an RD, and then assume that
their patient will receive the correct and proper advice, seeing
how the RD is trained, licensed, and attend continuing
education.
It’s a “a nice loop,” as Michele says, where corporate
interests massively undermine and manipulate any real knowledge
of what it takes to get healthy, in terms of the foods you eat.
Clearly, the dietary advice Americans get is fatally flawed.
A staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and
about one-quarter to one third of adults are in the obese
category. This in turn drives skyrocketing diabetes rates.
According to the latest report from the American Diabetes
Association,2
an estimated 22.3 million people were living with type 1 or type
2 diabetes in 2012, up from 17.5 million in 2007.
The food industry is quick to point out that the choice is
always yours — they’re not making you buy something you don’t
want. They also want to blame the obesity problem on people’s
unwillingness to exercise. However, when the largest junk food
manufacturers on the planet are the ones teaching
dieticians about nutrition and what makes for a healthy diet,
clearly the food industry carries a much larger burden
of responsibility than these companies are willing to openly
admit.
As little as 25 years ago the public was still being told
smoking cigarettes was perfectly harmless, and many believed the
propaganda. Since then society has paid the price for that
fraudulent piece of misinformation. What you’re seeing now is
the next phase of this sad trend, where food manufacturers,
trade groups, lobbyists, and government are in cahoots to
deceive you for profit, without regard for your health.
Many are now well aware of the influence of the drug industry
on our health care system, but food companies are equally as
powerful and pervasive and perhaps even more pernicious in their
influence on people’s health, because more often than not it’s
your food choices that produce the disease. Besides overly
generous helpings of sugar, more than 3,000 food additives --
preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients -- are
added to foods in the United States. Many of these
additives are banned in other countries, and many others,
including aspartame, have never been properly tested for
long-term safety.
Who is Educating Dieticians on What You Should Eat?
Major food companies that have a close and cozy relationship
with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics include:
- Nestle
- Coca-Cola
- Kraft
- PepsiCo (the nation’s largest food company, which beside
soda also owns Frito Lay — the largest snack food company —
Gatorade, and other junk food brands)
- ConAgra (one of the biggest processed food companies)
- General Mills (purveyor of “candy cereals” aimed at
children) and many others
For the past 12 years the National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association has been a significant sponsor as well, as has the
National Dairy Council. Even fast-food companies like
McDonald’s are represented at the annual meetings.
“They want to make sure that they’re being viewed as
a good-for-you fast food company. So, at their booth, they
would be sampling salads, smoothies, and oatmeal,”
Michele explains.
“[Food companies] are basically trying to use these
[nutrition] professionals to carry their message to their
clients. That’s the name of the game here: To make sure the
next time an RD talks to a client, they’ll say, 'Gee, you
should really try this better-for-you, baked, glazed potato
chip, because it has a few less grams of salt or fat.' It’s
to make sure that RDs are recommending these still highly
processed, nutrient-deficient junk foods to their clients.”
The same goes for hazardous food ingredients like aspartame.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has adopted the position
that artificial sweeteners are okay. Based on these conflicts of
interest between major food companies and the trade organization
for dieticians, it’s no stretch to imagine that this stance is
connected to the fact that Coca-Cola Company is the one
educating dieticians about aspartame!
“Of course, there are many independent-minded,
scientifically trained RDs who are able to ferret out the
good information about these types of products. There are
many RDs, in fact, that have rejected membership in the
academy, mostly because of these relationships,”
Michele says. “The problem really lies with the
leadership of this organization and the fact that they’re
putting their stamp of approval on these types of webinars
and companies that obviously are contributing to the very
problem that the profession is trying to address.”
Concerned Dieticians Band Together to Fight for Reform
Michele’s report3
was released in January. Not surprisingly, the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics was none too happy about it.
“They engaged in what I would call typical industry
tactics such as shooting the messenger,” Michele says.
“They made me the problem as opposed to my criticism of
them. They said that I was biased and I had an agenda. And
then they accused me of inaccuracies. This went on for
several weeks, where they claimed there were inaccuracies in
the report without naming them... Then they finally came out
with this supposedly damning list of inaccuracies, and there
really weren’t any! They were just arguing with me over
opinion-related matters [such as whether or not a majority
of RDs support the academy’s sponsorship program].”
The good news is that in the wake of her report, a group of
RDs have formed a more formal organization called Dieticians for
Professional Integrity, aimed at pushing for more transparency
and independence from industry.
You can see corporate interests reflected in a number of
illogical stances the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has
adopted. As a general rule, the Academy shies away from taking
any stand that may upset their corporate sponsors, such as not
marketing junk food to children or supporting GMO labeling. This
is particularly befuddling considering the fact that while
corporate sponsorships do bring needed funds to the
organization, these sponsorships only account for five to 10
percent of their reported income. The rest comes from membership
dues. So it seems they could easily make up that revenue from
some other source.
“That really does raise the question: what is going
on here?” Michele says. “Is there something deeper
to these relationships? Is it just this philosophy? In any
case, if your organization can only survive by taking money
from the likes of Coke, Pepsi, and McDonald’s, then I think
maybe it’s time to really rethink your mission and whether
you should be in existence at all.”
Dieticians’ Trade Group Seeks to Censor Nutritional Advice
Then there’s the issue of the Academy’s questionable attacks
on people’s right to freely talk about nutrition. Last year, the
North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition, a state chapter of
the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), threatened
legal action against a blogger for writing about the paleo
diet without being a registered dietician.
An internal document suggested the agency was forging ahead
with a "strategy for gaining legal control over the term
"nutritionist," as a path to limit competition for its members,
against competing types of nutrition counseling." In other
words, the Academy only wants you to be able to get your
nutritional advice from one of their conventionally trained
registered dieticians, who have undergone the nutritional
brainwashing revealed in Michele’s report.
Other health experts such as your chiropractor, naturopath,
personal trainer, or any number of other contacts in your life
who may have amassed personal experience in their lifetimes,
including yours truly, would not be allowed to share nutritional
advice, should the Academy get its way. Considering the very
obvious industry connections revealed by Michele’s report, this
would be an absolute disaster — it would be nothing less than a
monopoly on bad advice. But it sure would protect the processed
food industry that is increasingly being scrutinized for its
role in demolishing the health of the entire nation...
Teaching Advocates to Effectively Counter Corporate Tactics
Michele now has a couple of other reports in the works,
including one on the dairy industry. She’s also hoping to
develop stronger ties with various health advocate groups to
work together on countering the corporate tactics that are
currently misleading the masses.
“I have a whole new talk I’m doing now that looks at
how the food industry lies, and how it engages PR
professionals — really unpacking the types of messaging that
the industry engages in [during] these policy battles,”
she says.
“I feel there’s a role for assisting people who
advocate – policy makers or whoever is going up against the
industry. What I envision from my long-term plan is
workshops, trainings (training the trainers), and really
thinking about countering corporate tactics as a legitimate
field of study, even for academics, and also as a specific
skill... really building the skills of advocates and
countering corporate tactics, exposing the front groups,
exposing the PR, exposing everything the industry is doing,
so that you can be better equipped when you start down the
road [of advocacy].
... It’s not enough to just expose the problem. It’s
not enough to do research reports on yet more
marketing-to-children problems. I’m so tired of reports
about this problem. We know this is the problem. Let’s get
smarter and more strategic about how to counter the industry
and how to beat them at their own game. That’s where I feel
like there’s just a tremendous opportunity.”
Where Can You Find Truly Unbiased Nutrition Info?
Such changes are certainly desperately needed, because so
many people’s lives and the quality of lives are at stake.
There’s simply no doubt that health is being sacrificed for
corporate profits.
Do you want some nutrition advice that isn't influenced by
corporate agendas? The easiest way to optimize your health is by
focusing on WHOLE, unadulterated foods, meaning foods that have
not been processed or altered from their original state. "Real"
foods like grass-fed beef, raw butter, organic cage-free eggs,
vegetables and other whole foods are not the subject of
commercial jingles or billboards, but they are the
types of foods that will properly nourish your body
andsupport your health.
You can find more examples of real, healthy, non-corporate
food in
my free nutrition plan. Also, I hope you’ll take the time to
learn more about Michele Simon’s work by visiting her web site,
EatDrinkPolitics.com.4
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.