The American Dietetic Association's latest attempt to educate eaters about 
healthy eating -- a joint effort between the ADA and the Hershey Company (HSY) -- proves, once again, that the group representing some 52,000 dietitians never met a food company it didn't want to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from. "Moderation Nation" is being billed as a national nutrition education campaign, but critics of the ADA see it as just another in a long strong of corporate sell-outs.
It's no secret that the ADA is funded not just by its member dues, but a long list of food companies -- everyone from Coca-Cola (KO) and General Mills (GIS) to Cargill and Pepsico (PEP). The group defends these partnerships by saying they have no influence whatsoever over its position papers and recommendations. A spokesperson told Fooducate:
It's important for ADA to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them. For ADA, relationships with outside organizations are not about promoting companies' products; they are about creating nutrition messages that people can understand and act upon to improve their health and that of their families.
People like NYU nutrition professor Marion Nestle couldn't disagree more:
As long as the ADA partners with makers of food and beverage products, its opinions about diet and health will never be believed independent (translation: based on science not politics).
It's smart for food companies to want to be part of the conversation about health and obesity -- it helps them deflect blame and earn good will. But a lot of these public-private partnerships just don't ring true. It's hard to see why anyone would want to get moderation and healthy eating advice from a candy company. Especially one whose core product has more than doubled in size since it was introduced at the turn of the century. According to Lisa Young,
author of The Portion Teller Plan and a registered dietitian, the original size of a Hershey bar was 0.6 ounces. Now it's 1.45 oz, and the King Size, which of course didn't exist in 1900, is 2.6 oz. Those delicately-sized 0.6 oz bars? Now they're "fun-sized" and you can only buy them if you get a ton of them in a huge bag. Moderation schmoderation.
But instead of straightforward advice, the ADA usually provides confusing, milquetoast recommendations and parrots the food industry's flawed mantra that there are no bad foods. Um, actually there are bad foods and Hershey makes some of them. Which doesn't mean you should never eat them. But having dietitians start with the simple premise that many products at the grocery store are not really good for you would go a long way towards sorting through the clutter.
Image from the ADA's Eatright.org
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