RE: Politics Nutrition Wars Sugar

[Guest guest]

Regarding topics, the following is a bit of something for all - nutrition,

politics, and business - can they really be separated?

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/index.php?newsid=5366

U.S. sets off furor in anti-obesity fight

Bush officials hit WHO's focus on sugar, junk foods

By Judith Graham

Tribune staff reporter

Published January 20, 2004

The U.S. is challenging a draft plan by the World Health Organization to

combat the growing worldwide epidemic of obesity, provoking strong

international criticism and charges that the food industry is influencing

the policy.

The Bush administration alleges that the WHO plan, under development for

three years, relies too heavily on questionable science to recommend that

people limit their intake of sugar and other refined foods, among other

measures.

The administration's position has caught international public health

officials by surprise and sent shock waves through the WHO governing board,

which is meeting in Geneva. The board is set to decide Tuesday whether to

endorse the new obesity plan.

" People are appalled and, frankly, extremely dismayed, " Neville Rigby,

director of policy for the London-based International Obesity Task Force,

said Monday in Geneva.

The WHO plan would lay out policy recommendations that nations could adopt

to stem a rising tide of obesity. Some 300 million people are thought to be

obese worldwide.

The WHO seeks to create an international blueprint for promoting healthy

lifestyles and reducing the costs of chronic diseases related to obesity,

such as heart disease and diabetes.

The draft plan suggests nations consider advising people to limit sugar and

refined foods, restricting junk food marketing, improving food labeling and

raising prices on unhealthy foods.

Rigby and others suggest that U.S. criticism of the plan is being driven by

the sugar industry, grocers and other U.S. multinational food companies that

want to forestall emerging international efforts to regulate food marketing,

pricing, production and trade.

The U.S. position came to light in a Jan. 5 letter by Steiger,

special assistant for international affairs at the Department of Health and

Human Services, to Dr. J.W. Lee, director general of the WHO.

In the 28-page letter, the U.S. repeatedly suggested that the quality of the

science used by the WHO to support its policy recommendations was

questionable.

Among the concerns articulated in the letter, the U.S. said rigorous

scientific studies do not clearly show that marketing fast foods or high

calorie foods to consumers increases their risk of becoming obese. Nor do

scientific studies definitively link particular foods, such as soft drinks

or juices, or foods high in fat or sugar, to a higher risk of obesity.

Evidence does not support the conclusion that TV advertising for food can be

tied to rising rates of childhood obesity, the letter asserted.

On Friday, Steiger told the Washington Post the U.S. would demand

significant changes to the WHO obesity initiative based on the concerns

outlined in his letter. The U.S. wants to see more emphasis on the role of

" personal responsibility " for obesity and less emphasis on government

regulation, Steiger said.

Steiger could not be reached for comment Monday.

On Friday, Kaare Norum, the senior scientist leading the WHO's anti-obesity

effort, sent an angry letter to HHS Secretary Tommy charging that

the U.S. was putting business interests above public health.

" I am deeply concerned about the course the U.S. is pursuing, " Norum said

Monday during a telephone interview from Geneva. " I am very disappointed and

very astonished.

" I hope the U.S. will stand alone and the [WHO] strategy will go ahead, "

said Norum, a professor at the Institute for Nutrition Research at the

University of Oslo.

Dr. Walter Tsou, president-elect of the American Public Health Association,

said the WHO's emphasis on encouraging people to eat less processed food

laden with fat and sugar and more fruits and vegetables is exactly what U.S.

consumers are being told.

" Any mother with any common sense knows that you don't feed your kids

cookies and ice cream every day unless you want to see them gain weight, " he

said. " This appears on its surface like what happened with tobacco: an

attempt to raise scientific questions to draw attention away from actions

that could stem an escalating public health problem. "

Several critics of the U.S. position noted its similarity to industry

statements over the past year opposing the WHO's obesity initiative.

For instance, at a meeting last May, Mari Stull, a top official at Grocery

Manufacturers of America, called the WHO report " troubling " because it

" severely understates the role of the individual in managing his or her diet

and weight, while it overstates the role government could or should play. "

Consumers in wealthy countries like the U.S. may be able to choose what they

eat, but that is often not the case in poorer countries where obesity is

exploding, said professor Bill Leonard, chairman of the anthropology

department at Northwestern University, who has studied obesity in Latin

America and Siberia.

Healthier foods are often simply unaffordable for impoverished families in

these countries. " Expecting the rest of the world to follow the U.S. model

of personal responsibility is very shortsighted, " Leonard said. " This is an

area where it is reasonable to ask governments abroad to act to look at what

their policy options are. "

The data the WHO has assembled on obesity, while not the most rigorous

possible, does offer " compelling evidence " that the problem is expanding and

merits attention even before definitive scientific studies are completed, he

said.

The U.S. Sugar Association threatened last year to ask congressional allies

to eliminate U.S. funding for the WHO unless it canceled the release of its

report on obesity, diet and chronic disease.

Sugar companies were irate over a WHO recommendation included in the report

that urged people to get no more than 10 percent of their daily calories

from sugar and other sweeteners.

Rather than focusing on specific types of food, the U.S. believes the WHO

should be focusing on people's overall caloric content and the degree to

which they exercise, said Dr. Van Hubbard, director of the National

Institutes of Health's division of nutrition research coordination.

It is the totality of people's food choices that is important, not

individual food choices which will vary by country and culture, Hubbard

said. Furthermore, hard evidence proving that specific foods contribute to

obesity for the most part does not exist, he noted.

The U.S.'s overarching goal of stemming the rising tide of obesity is

entirely aligned with the WHO, Hubbard insisted. The major disagreement is

over tactics, he said.

Professor Shiriki Kumanyika, who teaches epidemiology and biostatistics at

the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and who was vice chair

of the panel that drafted the WHO's report, isn't impressed by that

argument. Most of the dietary suggestions included in the WHO report are

" extremely compatible with the U.S. dietary guidelines, " she said.

U.S. guidelines on what people should eat have not been based on irrefutable

scientific evidence; like the WHO guidelines, they are crafted using

" reasonable evidence and sound judgment, " said Kumanyika, who helped prepare

U.S. guidelines.

Copyright C 2004, Chicago Tribune