The American Dietetic Association aims to promote “optimal nutrition, health and well-being,” according to its website, by “translating the science of nutrition into practical solutions for healthy living.”
A recent article in lefty mag In These Times, however, suggests that the ADA is also promoting some questionable corporate tie-ins. Author Jacob Wheeler attended the ADA’s Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, and found dietitians shilling for Taco Bell and McDonald’s, as well as a PR rep from Monsanto. The conference was sponsored by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, which just launched a new over-the-counter diet pill, leading Wheeler to ask:
Why … was a diet pill promoted at the ADA’s annual keynote event when the most important factor in maintaining a healthy lifestyle is to eat right (the ADA’s website, after all, is http://www.eatright.org)? And how did ‘the nation’s food and nutrition experts’ stray from promoting the fruits, vegetables and whole grains featured on the covers of their books? Could it be related to the more than $10,000 that [GlaxoSmithKline] contributed to ADA as a corporate sponsor within the last year? ADA’s other corporate sponsors include Unilever, National Dairy Council, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Mars Inc. and Abbott Nutrition.
The ADA solicits corporate sponsorship within certain guidelines, but it has also taken stances that might not be popular with big business, including advocating limiting soda in schools.
The article goes on to note that the ADA has been silent about the local food movement, and hasn’t exactly embraced organics. Its official public relations stance is that “Research shows that nutritionally there is no evidence that organic produce is better or safer than conventionally grown produce.” Increasing evidence, however, suggests that the organization might want to take a second look at that stand.
So what’s up with the ADA? As Wheeler notes, “The valuable local food lessons of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma seem not to have registered at the ADA—or, at least, not enough to have supplanted its need to court corporate sponsors for its annual conference.”
It took the association a few decades to deem vegetarian diets acceptable. Give it a few more to embrace sustainability.
I find it frustrating when “corporate funding” is always viewed with such distain..who do you think provides funding for most of medical research? How do you think the ADA conference is even possible? These are important conferences to further the education and advancement in medicine and are made possible by large companies, and I don’t see why they should be scolded for this! You mentioned GlaxoSmithKline funded this and they make a diet pill…they also happen to market one of the biggest diabetes medications. Ignoring this and associating their funds to a “diet pill” undermises their contributions to the medical community.
I am curious, when were Vegetarian diets proven to be healthy? From everything that I have read, the Vegetarians of Southern India have TREMENDOUSLY more Heart Disease than the Meat Eaters of the North.
And since Southern India is basically the biggest and longest standing Vegetarian society on Earth, I think that is pretty interesting.
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Northern Indians consume 17 times more animal fat, but have 1/7th the amount of Heart Disease:
“In 1962, it was shown that heart disease in northern India was just one-seventh of the rate in southern India yet northern Indians who had a mostly meat diet consumed 17 times as much animal fat as southern Indians who were mostly vegetarian.” – http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=2082
“Mortality from coronary heart disease in southern India was seven times higher than in the north and the age at death 44 years compared with 52, although people in the north ate 19 times more fat, mostly animal fat, and also smoked much more.4″ – http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1122148