Food Industry a Target in Obesity Fight
Mar, 19 2006 - (AP) It's tempting to blame big food companies for America's big obesity problem. After all, they're the folks who Supersized our fries, family-portioned our potato chips and Big Gulped our sodas. There's also the billions they've spent keeping their products ever on our minds and in our mouths.
Likened by some to the way tobacco companies seduced smokers, such practices have made the food industry the target of lawsuits and legislation seeking to yank junk food from schools and curb advertising to children.
Sure, companies set the stage with cheap, calorie-dense foods.
But government also has propped up agribusiness, the medical community was slow to take on obesity and good nutrition, and consumers seem determined to move less and eat more, says Tillotson, a former food industry executive.
How much of that burden of blame belongs to the food industry can be difficult to answer.
But some experts say neither the problem nor the solution is nearly so simple.
"You don't have the collusion or the cover-up you had in smoking," says James Tillotson, a business and food policy professor at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition. "We want to blame somebody, but the thing is, we're all a part of it."