Junk Food Industry Nutritional Science

In a dramatic development, industry may finally be finding a voice in Bush administration policy. The World Health Organization is in the process of adopting guidelines based on the connection between bad diet, obesity, and disease. Simple enough, right?
Not exactly.
According to the food industry-directed U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there is no such thing as a bad diet:

here is, says the letter signed by William R Steiger, special assistant to the secretary for international affairs, “an unsubstantiated focus on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, and a conclusion that specific foods are linked to non-communicable diseases and obesity (eg energy-dense foods, high/added sugar foods and drinks, meats, certain types of fats and oils and higher fat dairy products).
“The US government favours dietary guidance that focuses on the total diet, promotes the view that all foods can be a part of a healthy and balanced diet, and supports personal responsibility to choose a diet conducive to individual energy balance, weight control and health.”
Critics said these were the arguments continually cited by the food industry: that all food is good in moderation and that exercise matters at least as much as diet.

Of course. Junk foods don’t contribute to weight gain, there’s no obesity problem in America, and I’m blogging aboard the Mars rover.

Commercial Alert, a US-based non-profit organisation, condemned the US government for attempting to “head off” the WHO initiative.
Gary Ruskin, its executive director said: “The Bush administration is putting the interests of the junk food industry ahead of the health of people–including children–on a global scale.
“The administration’s arguments border on the ludicrous. Does anyone outside the administration and the junk food industry truly doubt that the consumption and marketing of high-calorie junk food plays a role in obesity and other chronic diseases?
“Why would this administration–or any administration–invoke the moral authority of the United States on behalf of the junk food and the obesity lobby?
“If the Bush administration is successful in halting the WHO’s initiative, in the long term it could potentially cost millions of lives in terms of needless deaths due to obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.”

The Bush administration favoring industry interests over public health? Never.