by Kelly D. Brownell and Katherine Battle Horgen, Ph.D.
(2004, Chicago: Contemporary Books)
by Daniel Kirschenbaum, Ph.D., Clinical Director, Healthy Living Academies and Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern Universtiy Medical School
Professor Kelly Brownell directs the Yale University Center for Eating and Weight Disorders and is certainly among the foremost experts in the world on obesity and weight control. He and his associate Dr. Katherine Horgen have written a scientifically based, beautifully written, scathing commentary on the forces that have converged to increase weight problems in America (and the world) dramatically in the past three decades, particularly among children. They also pose some innovative solutions in their final chapter called, “Taking Decisive Action.”
As Drs. Brownell and Horgen clearly demonstrated in their book, we Americans have had our thinking about food dramatically affected by big business. Many billions of dollars have been made by those selling products that clearly increased weight problems in this country. These powerful forces continue to flood the airways and magazines with misinformation, basically communicating the desirability and acceptance of very unhealthy foods and drinks.
In a chapter entitled, “Big Food, Big Money, Big People,” they argued very convincingly that huge food and beverage companies used billions in marketing dollars to sell us obesegenic foods and drinks. These companies also entrenched themselves in schools, using substantial financial incentives to create a dependence on them by school administrators all across America. The authors of Food Fight supported their claims with extensive documentation, including:
“At its peak, the 5-A-Day fruit and vegetable program from the National Cancer Institute had $2 million for promotion. This is one-fifth the $10 million used annually to advertise Altoids mints. In turn, the Altoids budget is a speck compared to budgets for the big players - $3 billion in 2001 for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo combined just for the United States (p.6).”
Some Celebrities Endorsing Fast Foods (p.125):
Schools receive barely enough payments to cover their costs for each free meal they serve as part of the National School Lunch Program. The a la carte foods (e.g., Papa John’s pizza for $2 a slice) and vending machine items yield 50-100% profits (p.146). In another specific example, the recent annual incomes per school in Kentucky were (p.131):
As the authors observed, scientists do their work quietly. We receive no payment for articles published in scientific journals, even in the best journals in the world. Scientists rarely publish popular books like this one. These “trade books” take considerable time and specialized writing skills. They also demand a willingness (eagerness actually) to do scores of interviews, travel, and other things that take even more time and effort, often with modest payoffs.
You can see why capitalism creates and sells more books than science. Millions get poured into creating and selling trade books, even lousy ones. Billions get spent convincing us that foods that contribute to weight gain are just fine, normal, part of the greatness of our culture. How can objective sciences, gathering dust in obscure journals, compete with that for your attention?
The authors’ suggestions for this dilemma include the following important recommendations: