The risky business of health organization and food company partnerships: CMAJ
The editorial, written by Drs. Paul Hébert, Editor-in-Chief, CMAJ and Yoni Freedhoff, Medical Director, Bariatric Medical Institute, Ottawa, said that highly processed, high-calorie, nutritionally poor foods tend to be those that drive the greatest profits for many food manufacturers – products that contradict the government’s dietary advice on healthy food choices, and the aims of health organizations to combat obesity.
The authors claim that co-branding is often beneficial to sales, without supporting healthy eating or health promotion, citing partnerships such as KFC linking with US breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen to sell pink buckets of fried chicken; and Cadbury chocolate using UNICEF Canada branding on its chocolate bars. However, rather than placing blame with food companies, they advise health organizations to avoid this kind of promotion.
“Corporations are not the problem,” the authors wrote. “By definition, corporate spending must serve to increase shareholder value — a transparent fiduciary requirement that should encompass philanthropic efforts. Health organizations, even when desperate for money or resources, should avoid co-branding with the food industry."
Hébert and Freedhoff claim that such partnerships can work in a number of ways to further industry interests. These include helping with lobbying efforts, such as the recent partnering of Coca-Cola with the American Academy of Family Physicians – the beverage giant’s CEO Sandy Douglas mentioned the relationship between the two as part of her case against soda tax. And Save the Children withdrew its support of soda taxes after accepting a $5m grant from PepsiCo, although PepsiCo denies that it pressured the charity to change its position.
The authors also argue that partnerships between health organizations and industry can help conceal the main reasons for health problems like obesity, for example, by playing up the role of physical activity in its prevention, while playing down the role of calorie consumption, despite research efforts that have shown rising caloric intake to be the primary driver of rising obesity rates.
“When they partner, health organizations become inadvertent pitchmen for the food industry,” the authors concluded. “They would do well to remember that corporate dollars always introduce perceived or real biases that may taint or distort evidence-based lifestyle recommendations and health messages.”
Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal
CMAJ 2011. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.110085
“Partnerships between health organizations and the food industry risk derailing public health nutrition”
Authors: Yoni Freedhoff, Paul C. Hébert
