TITLE: Study shows food from tobacco-owned brands more 'hyperpalatable' than competitor's food
EXCERPT: Many of us know all too well the addictive nature of many foods marketed in the United States—most call it "junk food." In fact, this kind of salty, sweet and high-fat fare makes up the lion's share of what's marketed to Americans.
Researchers employ a more scholarly term for food items featuring purposely tempting combinations of salts, fats and sugars: They're "hyperpalatable."
Now, an investigator at the University of Kansas has conducted research showing food brands owned by tobacco companies—which invested heavily into the U.S. food industry in the 1980s—appear to have "selectively disseminated hyperpalatable foods" to American consumers. The study was published in the journal Addiction.
"We used multiple sources of data to examine the question, 'In what ways were U.S. tobacco companies involved in the promotion and spread of hyperpalatable food into our food system?"' said lead author Tera Fazzino, assistant professor of psychology at KU and associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the KU Life Span Institute.
"Hyperpalatable foods can be irresistible and difficult to stop eating. They have combinations of palatability-related nutrients, specifically fat, sugar, sodium or other carbohydrates that occur in combinations together."
Fazzino's previous work has shown today that 68% of the American food supply is hyperpalatable.
EXCERPT: There’s a panel of 20 nutrition experts that has outsized influence on the American diet — and the food industry has worked hard to get friendly researchers into the group, new documents obtained by STAT show.
The National Potato Council, for example, nominated one of the researchers behind an industry-funded study showing eating french fries each day doesn’t result in more weight gain than eating a comparable amount of almonds. The National Coffee Association put forth an academic who said coffee consumption is tied to lower risk of certain cancers. The soy industry nominated a prominent vegan. The International Bottled Water Association? They like three researchers who study the benefits of — you guessed it — water.
The normally secret nominations, which were obtained by STAT via a Freedom of Information Act request, demonstrate the food industry’s persistent efforts to influence the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other bodies that regulate nutrition and health in the United States. The panel in question, chosen by the USDA and HHS, deliberates the latest nutrition science for the better part of two years and then submits a report to regulators, who then decide on any ultimate tweaks to the national dietary guidelines.
“Food companies are not social service agencies, and they’re not public health agencies, they’re businesses,” said Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “You do not want dietary guidelines to say anything negative about your products, and [food companies] will go to whatever lengths are necessary to make sure that no federal agency says anything negative about their products.”
TITLE: The food industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits
EXCERPT: The food, beverage and dietary supplement industries are paying dozens of registered dietitians that collectively have millions of social media followers to help sell products and deliver industry-friendly messages on Instagram and TikTok, according to an analysis by The Washington Post and The Examination, a new nonprofit newsroom specializing in global public health reporting.
The analysis of thousands of posts found that companies and industry groups paid dietitians for content that encouraged viewers to eat candy and ice cream, downplayed the health risks of highly processed foods and pushed unproven supplements — messages that run counter to decades of scientific evidence about healthy eating. The review found that among 68 dietitians with 10,000 or more social media followers on TikTok or Instagram, about half had promoted food, beverages or supplements to their combined 11 million followers within the last year.
While some dietitians noted in their social media posts that they were part of paid partnerships, their relationships with the food industry were in many cases not made explicit to viewers, the analysis found. The Federal Trade Commission advises all social media influencers to be clear about who is paying them for promotions.