by Marion Nestle

Search results: food policy action

Mar 22 2009

Food marketing: cartoons, scholarship, and action

First, the cartoons: this week’s question from Eating Liberally’s kat has to do with whether it makes sense to put cartoon characters on eggs or, for that matter, fruits and vegetables.  I vote no, of course, and the illustrations alone explain why.

Next, the scholarship: The latest volume of Annual Reviews of Public Health contains excellent reviews of studies of the influence of the food marketing environment on child and adult health.

Sara Bleich et al explain why obesity has become so common in the developed world.

Kelly Brownell’s group reviews the effects of food marketing on childhood obesity.

David Katz discusses school-based obesity interventions.

Mary Story et al describe policy approaches to creating healthy food environments.

And the American Association of Wine Economists (a group new to me, but interesting) forwards its Working Paper #33:

Janet Currie et al on the effect of fast food restaurants on obesity.

Finally, the action: Perhaps in response to all this, language inserted into the congressional spending bill asks the Federal Trade Commission to set up an interagency committee to set nutritional standards for products allowed to be marketed to children age 17 or under.  According to Advertising Age, the food industry thinks this is not a good idea.

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Dec 12 2008

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Dec 8 2008

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Happy Anniversary Food Politics.

The Tenth Anniversary Edition is out with a new Foreword by Michael Pollan.  It also has new Preface and a new Afterword, in which I bring food politics up to date.

 

Order from your local independent bookstore or Amazon or UC Press or Barnes & Noble

Summary

Food Politics We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States—enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over—has a downside. Our overefficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more—more food, more often, and in larger portions—no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being.

Food Politics Japanese edition: Tokyo: Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc, 2005. Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is very big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly $900 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view.

Social Sciences Academic Press, Beijing, (Liu Wenjun et al, translators, simplified characters) 2004. Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights.When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics—not science, not common sense, and certainly not health.

No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this pathbreaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever.

Blurbs

“In this fascinating book we learn how powerful, intrusive, influential, and invasive big industry is and how alert we must constantly be to prevent it from influencing not only our own personal nutritional choices, but those of our government agencies. Marion Nestle has presented us with a courageous and masterful exposé.” — Julia Child

“This remarkable book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand how it has come to be that the richest nation in the world is eating itself to death. . . . Straight reporting about the shaping of food policy, as this volume makes clear, is certain to offend some very powerful players.” — Joan Dye Gussow, author of This Organic Life

“Food politics underlie all politics in the United States. There is no industry more important to Americans, more fundamentally linked to our well-being and the future well-being of our children. Nestle reveals how corporate control of the nation’s food system limits our choices and threatens our health. If you eat, you should read this book.” — Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

“‘Blockbuster’ is one of the best ways that I could describe this book. . . . A major contribution to understanding the interaction of politics and science, especially the science of nutrition, it is of extreme value to virtually all policy makers and to everyone concerned with the American diet.” — Sheldon Margen, editor of the Berkeley Wellness Letter

“A devastating analysis of how the naked self-interest of America’s largest industry influences and compromises nutrition policy and government regulation of food safety. . . . A clear translation of often obscure studies and cases, the writing is accessible and lively.” — Warren Belasco, author of Appetite for Change

Reviews and Commentary

May 18 2008

Rising food prices: waste or deeper reasons?

Joachim von Braun, the director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, explained the reasons behind rising food prices to the State Department on May 6. His powerpoint presentation, (sent to me by a colleague) cites three reasons: high demand, high energy costs, and misguided policies, among them growing food for biofuels and–a new one–neglect of agricultural investment. Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin provide evidence for this last suggestion with an article about how the lack of investment in rice research is hurting the Philippines. Andrew Martin writes in the New York Times about the extraordinary amount of food Americans waste every day–roughly one pound of food per person per day. He cites an estimate from the USDA that recovery of just one-fourth of the waste could feed 20, million people a day. The proverbial food for thought?

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May 1 2008

Policy brief: the cost of higher food prices

The Oakland Institute has issued a short and useful policy brief on the social and political impact of rising food prices. I’m on the road this week and regularly reading USA Today delivered to hotel rooms. Its story yesterday about bread shortages in Egypt is surely an indication of the need for deep policy analysis followed up by immediate policy action.

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Mar 21 2008

Will bans on marketing food to kids do any good?

In trying to figure out what to do about childhood obesity, the comments on the recent post raise issues worth pondering. Anna, for example, points out that food ads are banned in Norway but that kids are still getting fatter (although to a lesser extent than in the U.S.). She writes: “I just don’t think it [the ban] makes enough of a difference, even if it seems like a good idea on some fronts. It is the larger culture of commercialism and consumerism that surrounds children in Westernized countries, and if Norway can’t regulate commercial influences away, the US certainly can’t.”

Maybe not, but this view leads to two possibilities for dealing with childhood obesity on the policy level.  One is to do nothing (because doing something won’t do any good anyway).    The other, which I prefer, is to start taking actions, one at a time, in the hope of creating an environment more favorable to healthy eating for kids.  A ban on marketing seems like a reasonable first step, as does doing something about school food.  These might make it easier to teach kids (and parents) some critical thinking around food issues, some cooking skills, and something about where food comes from and why it matters.  The long-range goal is to create a food environment that promotes healthy eating as the default.  This means doing something, even if the results aren’t immediately obvious.   That’s why I’m so in favor of calorie labeling, marketing restrictions, school food improvements, efforts to move supermarkets into low income neighborhoods, farmers’ markets, CSAs, and everything else that makes it easier to eat better.  Eventually, they may add up to something that registers on weight surveys.  And that hope keeps me going.  How about you?

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Feb 23 2017

Plate of the Union launches farm bill initiative

The Environmental Working Group and Food Policy Action are trying to get a head start on the upcoming Farm Bill.  Their new initiative: Plate of the Union.

This has four objectives:

  • Stop taxpayer subsidies going to Big Ag polluters – instead, invest in healthier farms.
  • Protect and improve vital anti-hunger programs.
  • Increase federal investments in organic agriculture.
  • Expand federal programs to revitalize land and reduce food waste.

These are critically important goals.  Everyone who cares about food needs to understand the farm bill and what it does.

But how to achieve them?

I’d like to know the action plan.  Stay tuned.

 

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Jul 27 2016

Plate of the Union goes Presidential

Food Policy Action wants presidential candidates to talk about food issues.  Its Plate of the Union campaign says:

Our food system is out of balance, and it’s time to take action.  Current food policies prioritize corporate interests at the expense of our health, the environment, and working families. This has led to spikes in obesity and type-2 diabetes, costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year. If you are elected president, I urge you to take bold steps to reform our food system to make sure every American has equal access to healthy, affordable food that is fair to workers, good for the environment, and keeps farmers on the land.

Here’s what the campaign is doing, courtesy of today’s New York Times:

In an e-mailed press release (which I can’t find online), Food Policy Action says:

Plate of the Union leaders Tom Colicchio, Ricardo Salvador and Navina Khanna spoke with Congressional members and staff, delegates and other convention-goers about commonsense steps the next president can take to change the status quo of the nation’s food policy, which currently prioritizes corporate interests at the expense of food and farm workers, and which is making Americans increasingly sick.

“When elected leaders talk about creating good jobs and boosting the economy, they absolutely have to consider food and farm policies,” said Navina Khanna, director of HEAL Food Alliance. “Six of the eight worst-paying jobs in America are in the food system. Our current food system was designed to benefit a few corporations at the expense of working families. That’s got to change.”

If you agree, sign the Plate of the Union petition on its site.
And just for fun, Politico Morning Agriculture’s Jenny Hopkinson provides this souvenir from the Democratic convention.
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