What you should know about the food industry

With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk-food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices.

But David Ludwig, a pediatrician, raises questions about whether big food companies can be trusted to help combat obesity.

Ludwig and Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, both of whom have long histories of tracking the food industry, highlight 10 things that junk-food makers don't want you to know about their products and how they promote them:

Junk-food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, food makers spend some $1.6 billion annually to reach children through the traditional media as well as the Internet, in-store advertising, and sweepstakes. An article published in 2006 in the Journal of Public Health Policy puts the number as high as $10 billion annually. Promotions often use cartoon characters or free giveaways to entice kids into the junk-food fold.

The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.

In fact, according to a review led by Ludwig of hundreds of studies that looked at the health effects of milk, juice and soda, the likelihood of conclusions favorable to the industry was several times higher among industry-sponsored research than studies that received no industry funding. "If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science," he says.

Junk-food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.

The American Dietetic Association, for example, accepts money from companies such as Coca-Cola, which get access to decision makers in the food and nutrition marketplace via ADA events and programs, as this release explains. As Nestle notes in her blog and discusses at length in her book Food Politics, the group even distributes nutritional fact sheets that are directly sponsored by specific industry groups.

The ADA's reasoning: "These collaborations take place with the understanding that ADA does not support any program or message that does not correspond with ADA's science-based healthful-eating messages and positions," according to the group's president, dietitian Martin Yadrick. "In fact, we think it's important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them."

More processing means more profit but typically makes the food less healthful.

Minimally processed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables obviously aren't where food companies look for profits. The big bucks stem from turning government-subsidized commodity crops — mainly corn, wheat and soybeans — into fast foods, snack foods and beverages. High-profit products derived from these commodity crops are generally high in calories and low in nutritional value.

Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.

Fresh apples have an abundance of fiber and nutrients that are lost when they're processed into applesauce. And the added sugar or other sweeteners increase the number of calories without necessarily making the applesauce any more filling. Apple juice, which is even more processed, has had almost all of the fiber and nutrients stripped out. This same stripping out of nutrients, says Ludwig, happens with highly refined white bread compared with stone-ground whole wheat bread.

Many supposedly healthful replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.

In 2006, for example, major beverage makers agreed to remove sugary sodas from school vending machines. But the industry mounted an intense lobbying effort that persuaded lawmakers to allow sports drinks and vitamin waters that — despite their slightly healthier reputations — still can be packed with sugar and calories.

A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthful.

Health claims such as "zero trans fats" or "contains whole wheat" may create the false impression that a product is healthful when it's not. Though the claims may be true, a product is not going to benefit your child's health if it's also loaded with salt and sugar or saturated fat, say, and lacks fiber or other nutrients. "These claims are calorie [distractions]," adds Nestle. "They make people forget about the calories."

Food-industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.

As Nestle explained in Food Politics, the food industry has a history of preferring scientific jargon to straight talk. As far back as 1977, public-health officials attempted to include the advice "reduce consumption of meat" in an important report called Dietary Goals for the United States.

The report's authors capitulated to intense pushback from the cattle industry and used this less-direct and more ambiguous advice: "Choose meats, poultry and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Overall, says Nestle, the government has a hard time suggesting that people eat less of anything.

The food industry funds front groups that fight anti-obesity public-health initiatives.

Unless you follow politics closely, you wouldn't necessarily realize that a group with a name like the Center for Consumer Freedom has anything to do with the food industry. In fact, Ludwig and Nestle point out, this group lobbies aggressively against obesity-related public-health campaigns — such as the one directed at removing junk food from schools — and is funded, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, primarily through donations from big food companies such as Coca-Cola, Cargill, Tyson Foods and Wendy's.

The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.

According to Ludwig and Nestle, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts that "[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons."

The bottom line, says Nestle, is quite simple: Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food.