{image credit :: thomas hawk}
I promise I don’t go to conferences for the food – at least not solely – but when I’m forking over a large sum and spending all day in educational seminars in alternately chilly and stuffy conference rooms, I could use a good meal around noon-time. So I would be a bit miffed to get a plastic-packaged meal from an everyday fast food joint. If I was attending the annual conference of my state’s dietetic association, I’d be downright irritated.
Nutritionists and dietitians at the annual California Dietetic Association conference in April were treated to lunch by McDonald’s, the premier sponsor of the event. If you cocked your head and raised your eyebrows in reading that (I’ll say it again… premier sponsor), you’re not alone. Nutrition professionals in attendance – and I – had the same reaction.
McDonald’s is now sponsoring dietetic conferences? Where will Big Food not go?
And lest you think that McDonald’s is an anomaly, other exhibitors included Nestle and Better Buds, maker of an enzyme-modified butter product with the benefit of “flavor masking” (yum…?).
Now, just because McDonalds supported the conference and gave out free lunch doesn’t mean that the actual educational sessions the dietitians were attending were influenced, right? Well, Mother Jones reported that sessions included talks about the safety of genetically modified foods, the value of Walmart in communities, and the defense of high-fructose corn syrup.
The bottom line is that there are many sides to every debate, and none of the above topics are clear cut. Personally, I would be frustrated to think that dietitians in our communities are hearing only one perspective on any of these ideas. Villainizing any one food or food group – whether it’s wheat, sugar, dairy, or something else – isn’t an approach I would support. So I’m not suggesting that all the points made by Big Food are inherently wrong.
But we all know that it’s hard to argue with a giant, especially a giant with billions of dollars who are primarily invested in keep shareholders happy. Not healthy, but happy. Decreased sales because of panic around trans fats is a crisis for thousands of companies in the U.S. And trying to reduce the panic by changing public discourse is a hell of a lot cheaper (and less risky) than changing their entire product line. I get it. Business has an agenda, and that agenda is not always in line with public health.
But we trust our dietetic professionals to sift through the noise of and tell us how to navigate this chaotic world of food – a world that’s unparalleled in its range of options and misinformation. And when those professionals get caught up in the agenda of Big Food, I get concerned.
And it’s not just some dietitians in California at a convention that I worry about, it’s the larger scale canoodling between organizations like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the largest of its kind, and companies like Coca-Cola and Mars.
Put simply, how can an organization whose primary objective is to enhance the public’s health make reasoned recommendations when dependent on organizations with a completely different mission?
Back to the real world where money is what makes it go round… The reason the AND and the School Nutrition Association and so many other similar organizations accept these sponsorships is because they need money to survive and do their work, and it’s easy to submit to the allure of cold hard cash coming from Big Food with plenty of it.
So if our dietetic organizations need money to exist and enact their missions, and other sources aren’t available, what happens? We get our dinner served with a slice of Big Food agenda. Maybe it’s better than going hungry… Perhaps only time will tell.
What do you think? Should corporations like McDonalds be sponsoring dietetic events?