Diversity Publication Takes on Obesity
In a recent issue that celebrates the top diverse U.S. companies, including several food manufacturers and restaurant chains, Diversity Inc. calls out the food and beverage industry, in an investigative report, for marketing, public relations and lobbying tactics some believe have led to unhealthy eating habits and a national obesity epidemic. Titled How the Food Industry Profits While Society Pays, the report describes the effects of an overweight and obese society on the U.S. health care system, while noting that hundreds of hospitals have fast food restaurants on their premises. The report suggests that racial and social justice issues are implicated in the obesity epidemic, citing statistics showing that African-American, Latino and inner-city communities are saturated with fast-food restaurants.
A report sidebar discusses the largest fast food chains, noting the tens of thousands of restaurants that bear their logos around the world and the ways they market to children. “On a positive note,” the report observes that these companies have made a commitment to diversity thus earning a place on the magazine’s top diverse company rolls. Numerous references are made to recent films and books that have tried to draw attention to “Big Food” issues, and the report includes quotes from industry critics, such as Kelly Brownell, Michele Simon, David Kessler, and John Banzhaf, each of whom apparently claimed the food and beverage industry was following the tobacco industry’s “playbook.” Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University, reportedly said that fast-food companies do not tell consumers about the addictive properties of their products. “I think when a fast-food company deliberately doesn’t tell you important information that both legally and morally they bear some responsibility. It is deception by omission,” he was quoted as saying.
The report includes industry responses to the nation’s obesity problem. McDonald’s Corp. said that it creates jobs, pays taxes and contributes to the local communities where it does business. It also said, “To suggest that any single business or group of businesses is responsible for the obesity problem is at best inaccurate, and, at worst, irresponsible.” Burger King Corp. pointed to the ways it is helping “promote nutrition education” to its customers “in a manner that will have a meaningful impact on their nutritional choices.” Kraft Foods discussed how it is reformulating its products to reduce sodium, fat, added sugars, and calories, while increasing beneficial ingredients.
Concluding with a discussion of government initiatives to address nutrition and health, including Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, the report gives the final word to Philadelphia attorney Jonathan Scott Goldman. After referring to plaintiffs who sued McDonald’s in 2002 for their obesity-related health problems, Goldman states, “individual citizens do not have anything approaching the influence over our elected government that the fast food corporations can afford. The corporate special interests now control Washington, D.C., and the ordinary people are disorganized, disenfranchised and out of the political loop. While this is not how our government was meant to work, this is the current political reality.” During law school, Goldman authored an article discussing how tobacco litigation theories would be used against the food industry; a summary of that 2003 article appears in issue 82 of this Update. See Diversity Inc., June 2010.
