Food industry and health: mostly promises, little action.

摘要

Food-policy analysts at City University, London, UK, recently fired off another salvo in the food wars with an exhaustive-and depressing-report on what food companies are doing to address obesity, improvethe nutritional quality of their products, and market products more responsibly. Not much, write Tim Lang and colleagues. According to them, giant food corporations publicly state that they bear some responsibility for health (table), but most do not seem to meet this responsibility. The majority of food companies, the report concludes, "are notyet fully engaged with the seriousness and urgency" of today's health challenges. Indeed, "in failing fully to respond... companies appear to be distancing themselves from their responsibility for unhealthy consumer choices."1Lang and colleagues arrived at this dismal conclusion by scrutiny of statements about diet, physical activity, and prevention of obesity that appear in publicly availablereports and websites produced by the world's 25 largest (by sales) food corporations-ten manufacturing, ten retailing, and five food service-ranging in annual sales from USdollar11 billion (Burger King) to dollar256 billion (Wal-Mart). The report tabulates these companies' positions on 28 questions, among them: "Is there a policy specifically focused on children and food marketing?"; "Is there a commitment on sugar?"; "Is there a commitment on portion size?"; and "Is there a specific policy on nutrition claims?" The answers to these and the rest, alas, are mostly "No".