Currently browsing posts about: UK

Here’s how I learned about this one: Unilever, Nestlé and Coca-Cola villainised for government scientist ties.  Mondelēz International, Tate & Lyle, Pepsico and a host of other global food and drink manufacturing majors face fresh scrutiny over their links to government-advising scientists…. Read more

Villainized?  Isn’t this just business as usual?

Not exactly.  An analysis in the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) says UK government’s nutrition advisers are paid by world’s largest food companies(see BMJ 2024;386:q1909).

The authors examined declared links between members of SACN (The UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition) and the food and drinks industry.

:

The study found

More than half of the experts on the UK government’s advisory panel on nutrition have links to the food industry…Campaigners say that these conflicts of interests at the heart of policy making are detrimental to public health. Others say that they reflect the lack of funding for nutrition research and that removing experts with industry links from SACN would “diminish” its expertise..

Six members of SACN are members of the American Society for Nutrition, which is funded by Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and the Sugar Association, among others…SACN’s current work includes reviewing the evidence over ultraprocessed foods, artificial sweeteners, and plant based food and drink…Experts including van Tulleken and Percival say that SACN did not do enough to present the case for tougher regulation on ultraprocessed foods.

I definitely wanted to read more of this article from the newsletter, NutrIngredients-Europe:

ASA targets menopause claims with AI assisted crackdown:  The UK’s advertising standards authority (ASA) has warned supplement firms they must remove ads which make claims to treat or cure the symptoms of menopause, as part of a wider AI-assisted campaign…. Read more

Apparently, the UK’s version of our Federal Trade Commission is using artificial intelligence to monitor supplement advertising claims.   The AI system picked up ads for supplements made by Rejuvit Labs and FemTech Healthcare.

An ad for Rejuvit Menopause Relief supplement

included a customer testimonial that stated, “round 2-8 weeks after my first capsule, I already had extra room in my pants (everyone was asking how I lost weight), I felt more energized, and the hot flashes [sic] were gone […] I just keep feeling better, healthier, and happier.”

The ASA stated: “We considered that consumers would understand these to be claims that the product could treat symptoms of menopause, including resolving menopause-related weight gain, increasing energy levels and stopping hot flashes.”

The ASA takes a dim view of non-medical “cures” for menopausal symptoms and is going after them.

With AI algorithms!

It’s a brave new world out there.

The headline in The Guardian: UK children shorter, fatter and sicker amid poor diet and poverty, report finds.

Here’s the report.

It’s principal findings:

• The height of 5 year olds has been falling since 2013.
• Obesity among 10-11 year olds has increased by 30% since 2006.
• Type 2 diabetes among under 25s has increased by 22% in the past 5 years.
• Babies born today will enjoy a year less good health than babies born a decade ago.

As it says in the introduction,

Crucially, the report not only highlights a deeply worrying increase in conditions driven by calorie dense diets such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, but also highlights the equally concerning and substantially less talked about results of poor-quality diets and undernutrition….All children should be able to eat in way that fuels their bodies and minds, giving them sufficient calories and nutrients to be free from hunger and diseases of nutritional deficiency, while being protected from the bombardment of ultra-processed, highly sugary and salty foods that most often contribute to excess calorie intake but lack vitamins, minerals, fibre, healthy fats and quality protein.

Comment

I’m guessing if a similar study were to be done in the United States, its results would be similar.  Children are the future of our nation and society; they deserve good health and protection against junk food.

I’m just getting around to reading this report from three groups in the UK: Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the Obesity Health Alliance (OHA) and the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA): Holding us back: tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food and drink.

I learned about it from an article in The Guardian:

The report gives the health statistics: 13% of adults in England smoke, 21% drink above the recommended drinking guidelines, and 64% are overweight or living with obesity,.

NOTE: this report—unlike so many others—examines the political and economic causes of poor health.  It says practically nothing about personal choice or responsibility.  Instead, it focuses on industry profits and the costs of industry profiteering to society.

Big businesses are currently profiting from ill-health caused by smoking, drinking alcohol and eating unhealthy foods, while the public pay the price in poor health, higher taxes and an under-performing economy.

The wage penalty, unemployment and economic inactivity caused by tobacco, alcohol and obesity costs the UK economy an eye-watering £31bn and has led to an estimated 459,000 people out of work.

Meanwhile each year, the industries which sell these products make an estimated £53bn of combined industry revenue from sales at levels harmful to health.

The press release emphasizes the need to curb industry practices: More needs to be done to tackle the unhealthy products driving nearly half a million people out of work.

It recommends, among other things:

• The Government should take a coherent policy approach to tobacco, alcohol and high fat, salt and/or sugar foods, with a focus on primary prevention.
• Public health policymaking must be protected from the vested interest of health-harming industry stakeholders.

To do this, it suggests these actions to decrease sales of harmful products (my summary):

• Restrict advertising
• Set age limits  for purchase.
• Do not allow prominent placement in shops.
• Raise prices; tax.
• Educate the public about risks (the one place where personal responsibility is considered).

The U.K.’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) has released its statement on ultra-processed foods.

It dealt with the NOVA classification system (the one I used in yesterday’s post to define ultra-processed foods).  The committee does not like it much.

Assessment beyond the initial screen identified that the literature is currently dominated by NOVA, raising the risk that any limitations or biases present within the NOVA classification system may be replicated throughout the research literature.
While NOVA also met criterion 2 on a clear, usable definition and criterion 4 on the availability of data on inter-assessor agreement, assessment beyond the initial screen dentified less certainty on the clarity, reliability and feasibility of the system.

The SACN’s conclusions:

The SRs identified have consistently reported that increased consumption of (ultra-) processed foods was associated with increased risks of adverse health outcomes. However, there are uncertainties around the quality of evidence available. Studies are almost exclusively observational and confounding factors or key variables such as energy intake, body mass index, smoking and socioeconomic status may not be adequately accounted for.

…In particular, the classification of some foods is discordant with nutritional and other food-based classifications. Consumption of (ultra-) processed foods may be an indicator of other unhealthy dietary patterns and lifestyle behaviours. Diets high in (ultra-) processed foods are often energy dense, high in saturated fat, salt or free sugars, high in processed meat, and/or low in fruit and vegetables and fibre.

…The observed associations between higher consumption of (ultra-) processed foods and adverse health outcomes are concerning – however, the limitations in the NOVA classification system, the potential for confounding, and the possibility that the observed adverse associations with (ultra-) processed foods are covered by existing UK dietary recommendations mean that the evidence to date needs to be treated with caution.

Comment: Kevin Hall  et al’s well controlled clinical trial of ultra-processed versus merely processed diets is neither discussed nor cited in this statement.  Once again, I have no personal knowledge of how this statement was developed, but the U.K.s Soil Association has published a statement with the provocative title, Sticky fingers of food industry on government ultra-processed food review.

While we’re pleased that SACN has prioritised this review, and has acknowledged that ultra-processed foods are of “concern”, we’re disturbed that the committee’s conclusions may have been skewed by industry ties, conflicted financial interests, and a narrow framing of the science.

…But the committee is also guilty of losing the wood for the trees, failing even to raise concern about how ultra-processed foods have overtaken their own nutritional advice….Most people in the UK are failing to eat such a [healthy] diet, precisely because these foods have been displaced by ultra-processed products. The average child’s diet is more than 60% ultra-processed, and rates of obesity and ill health are rising sharply in turn. …SACN is oddly silent on case for re-balancing the diet and addressing the corporate capture of children’s food.

These omissions should prompt us to look more closely at the composition of the committee. SACN has sixteen members. One is a paid consultant working for Cargill, Tate & Lyle, and CBC Israel (a manufacturer and marketer of fizzy drinks such as Coca-Cola and Sprite); two are in receipt of funding from the meat and dairy industry; one is a shareholder in Sainsbury’s; and five are members of the American Society of Nutrition, which is funded by Mars, Nestlé, and Mondelez. Among SACN’s members is the Chair of International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe, a body that receives funding from some of the world’s largest food companies, such as Barilla, Cargill, Danone, General Mills, Mondelez, and PepsiCo; and two individuals with financial relationships with the British Nutrition Foundation, an organisation funded by British Sugar, Cargill, Coca Cola, Danone, Greggs, Kellogg, KP Snacks, Mars, McDonald’s, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Tate & Lyle, and Tesco. Two SACN members have been funded by Danone, one of the largest ultra-processed food companies in the world; one sits on the council of the Nestlé Foundation; and another is a former employee of Unilever, with current shares in the company worth “more than £5000”.

These declared interests do not imply corruption or bias on the part of SACN members, but they illustrate how pervasive are industry ties at the interface of science and policy.

For some reason, I’ve only just run across this account of food industry lobbying in the UK.

The introduction explains what the paper is about:

In this Discussion Paper, we examine the interactions of businesses with three major UK government departments, identify  weaknesses in the current disclosure process, and compare UK procedures with the more stringent disclosure requirements in two other English-speaking countries, Ireland and Canada, which tend to produce more specific and transparent data.

The authors are not trying to stop food industry lobbying; they just want it to be disclosed and at least as transparently as is required in Ireland and Canada.

In the United States, the best (only?) way to find out about food industry lobbying is to check the Open Secrets website.  It takes some exploration to find what you might be looking for, but it’s worth the trouble for this kind of result.

Or the top ten food and beverage spenders on lobbying.

If you can find it, the site identifies lobbyists, issues, and notes the revolving door between industry lobbyists and government positions.  It’s good to know these things.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

I’m just getting caught up on reports.  Here’s one from The Food Foundation, an “independent charity working to address challenges in the food system in the interests of the UK public.”

Its report: The Broken Plate 2022: The State of the Nation’s Food System  “documenting the health of our food system, how it impacts on our lives, and why we must change the food environment so that it delivers healthy and sustainable diets for everyone, everywhere.”

Three things about this report make it of special interest: comprehensiveness, clarity of presentation, and forthright statements about what needs to happen.

For example:

The report covers issues such as price and affordability, food availability (in schools and shopping areas), and health and environmental effects (chidren’s weight and growth, diabetes amputations, life expectancy, climate change).

The UK government has just published its long-awaited food strategy to almost universal disappointment.

But first, some background. Nearly a year ago, I wrote about the UK’s strategy proposals.  These had been commissioned from Henry Dimbleby, a restaurateur with a deep interest in food policy (the British version of Jose Andres?).

To summarize what I said in July 2021.

Henry Dimbleby described the UK’s National Food Strategy as  a “bit of a labour of love.”  It came a slide deck of 175 items.

A separate document. summarizes the report’s 14 recommendations.  Most of the recommendations dealt with school feeding and feeding programs for the poor.  Others:

Recommendation 1. Introduce a sugar and salt reformulation tax.  This came with a separate report on the impact of such a tax; it recommended using revenues to help get fresh fruit and vegetables to low income families.

Recommendation 11. Invest £1 billion in innovation to create a better food system.

Recommendation 13. Strengthen government procurement rules to ensure that taxpayer money is spent on healthy and sustainable food.

So, does the strategy do any of these things?  I have to confess finding the report unreadable.  It is extremely wordy and imprecise, talks a lot about objectives, but says almost nothing specific.  Here is just one example:

The strategy comes at a time of significant increases in food prices, largely because of energy prices and exacerbated by events in Ukraine, which is very challenging for people across the country. We are engaging closely with the food industry to understand price impacts and any mitigating measures, including through our Food Industry Resilience Forum and UK Agricultural Market Monitoring Group. We are also working closely with third sector organisations to understand challenges related to food access.

One section gives action items (I have edited these for clarity):

• Keep producing domestic food at current levels
• Promote job training for the agri-food industry.
• Reduce childhood obesity by half by 2030; reduce diet-related disease; increase healthier food
• Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the environmental impacts of the food system
• Export £1 trillion of food annually by 2030
• Maintain high standards for food consumed in the UK

How?  It doesn’t really say.  The one action item I could locate is to create a Food Data Transparency Partnership.

The partnership will champion consumer interests, providing people with the information they need to make more sustainable, ethical, and healthier food choices, and incentivise industry to produce healthier and more ethical and sustainable food….This partnership will join up with existing work across government to promote healthier food choices, so that government can speak with one voice to industry. It will also support further measures to strengthen incentives to reformulate food, promote healthier food and turn the trend on the overconsumption of calories to tackle obesity.

Unsurprisingly, reactions have been fierce: not a strategy, disappointing, nothing concrete about obesity , health, or reducing meat as a means to address climate change.  If those things are there, I couldn’t find them.

I also couldn’t find The Guardian’s most amusing criticism of the report:

Among its few policy proposals are the suggestion there could be more fish farming, which is environmentally controversial, and an increase in the use of “responsibly sourced wild venison”.

Is that in the report?  I can’t find any reference to venison or deer, however sourced.

Other critiques in The Guardian are here and here.

This is a lost opportunity, and a big one.  Disappointing, indeed.