Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (review)

As indicated by the title of her book, Marion Nestle's central thesis is that diet is a political issue. She argues that Congress, industry, and the inconsistencies of nutritional research have combined both to confuse the American public on what to eat, and to thwart the efforts of government agencies to promulgate rational nutritional guidelines. And government agencies are not blameless: they have caved in to pressures from Congress and industry, and they are hampered by infighting between the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health, Education and Welfare (later Health and Human Services) to play the leading role in nutritional education and research. The author is well qualified to undertake this task, and the extensive bibliography reflects her thorough job of researching the topic. Presently professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Services at New York University, she had a front seat during preparation of the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health while serving for two years as a nutrition advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services in the late 1980s. Though her book is written for the general reader, with an appendix containing a nontechnical overview of basic nutritional principles, it also serves as a valuable resource for professionals in the field.

The book is divided into five parts. In Part 1, "Undermining Dietary Advice," Nestle explains how the long-standing problem of nutritional deficiencies has largely been replaced during the twentieth century, at least in the United States, by the new problem of food excess. She describes how the overabundance of food has produced fierce competition among food companies to attain their share of this $700 billion industry by influencing consumers to eat more of their products. Companies have learned that sales increase when vitamins are added to foods, even unhealthy ones, and when the Food and Drug Administration allows labels to claim that a food has a health benefit, such as lowering cholesterol. Nestle traces the development of governmental dietary recommendations, from USDA's How to Select Foods in 1917 to the most recent guidelines. The American public favors foods when they are sweet, fat, and salty. Government agencies have struggled—often stymied by the actions of Congress—to issue guidelines that overcome these unhealthy food habits that contribute so prominently to four leading causes of death and disability: obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes. Lobbying by special-interest groups in the food industry has softened the original "eat fewer unhealthy foods" message of the guidelines; thus, "decrease meat consumption" has become "choose meats that will reduce saturated fat intake."

Part 2, "Working the System," details how food companies influence government through lobbying, co-opt nutritional experts by sponsoring research and nutritional conferences, befriend federal officials, and sue critics when all else fails. Part 3, "Exploiting Kids, Corrupting Schools," explains how companies target children with food advertisements and push carbonated soft drinks ($50 billion in sales in the United States) by placing vending machines next to cafeterias in schools, which are given large amounts of money for "pouring rights" contracts that give exclusive rights to one company to fill the machines.

In Part 4, "Deregulating Dietary Supplements," the author describes how the manufacturers of dietary supplements, a small segment of the food industry, used arguments like a person's freedom of choice to succeed in getting Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (commonly referred to as DSHEA). This act broadened the definition of supplements to include herbs, diet products, and, in fact, almost anything called a dietary supplement by manufacturers (who did not have to prove that their products were safe, or support their claim that a supplement improved some body function). DSHEA...