By Richard Tardif
The holidays offer a chance for all of us to slow down, and for me that means one thing: read a book or two on fitness, health and well-being, and this year is no different. In five days, I unfolded 320 pages of Marion Nestle’s Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, published in October. In a nutshell, the book is more a study of studies of the links and conflicts of interest between the food industry and the world of nutrition professionals.
In general, Nestle –no relation to the food company- criticizes the food and beverage companies that use questionable science and marketing to push their own agendas, Big Sugar, for example, resulting in obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Nestle goes into great detail about how corporate interests, like Big Sugar, as it’s been called, influence nutrition science, especially as reported to consumers.
The author cites dozens of studies making claims for various types of foods. Did you know chocolate milk was studied and found that, “high school football players improve their cognitive and motor function… even after experiencing concussion”? Science would consider this study statistically insignificant, yet the study was initiated and part-funded by the makers of Fifth Quarter Fresh. Luckily, no one took this serious. This is one example of many, too many!
Concurrently, I delightfully journeyed through 288 pages of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,written by former New York Times columnist, Anand Giridharadas. He argues that the elite citizens of the world, the 000.1 percent who are philanthropic more often than not — but in ways that ultimately serve only to protect and further their interests.
While Winners is not a book on health and fitness, Nestle’s writings parallels Giridharadas, for example, that Big Sugar gives money to research on plaque and tooth care to move focus from the negative effects of sugar on teeth, while soda companies fund research on how physical activity is more important for avoiding obesity than food choices, like Coca Cola did in 2013when it said all calories are created equal. Mars alone funded over 150 studies on the supposed and often non-existent health benefits of chocolate.
Nestle and Giridharadas commit to their assertion that without a big pool of funds for unbiased research and real solutions, we don’t have an avenue for pure scientific research.
Solutions for consumers include discovering the funders of these studies, and read the actual study, not a quick a quick read of a journalists re-cap. If it sounds good to be true, it probably is, and this is linked to the marketing of superfoods.
Just. Eat. Right.
Richard Tardif is an award-winning health journalist, health & fitness author, and a critic of the health and fitness industry. His first book, Stop the Denial: A Case for Embracing the Truth About Fitness, challenges, surprises, and inspires you to embrace a fitness lifestyle that will work in achieving your individual health goals.
