Food industry vows to make processed food healthier - but can we trust them?

In her speech at the White House childhood obesity summit on Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama stated that food manufacturers need to "do their part to improve the quality of the food that they provide." In response, the Grocery Manufacturers Association promised to make food sold in grocery stores healthier without regulation, cutting fat, sodium and calories in processed food.  Sounds good, but can we trust the food industry to it voluntarily?

Yesterday's childhood obesity summit was an unprecedented gathering of teachers, child advocates, doctors and nurses, business leaders, public servants, researchers and health experts was held in an effort to formulate a presidential action plan to combat the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States. The group of experts will recommend standards fighting childhood obesity on four fronts: creating "customer-friendly" food and nutrition labeling; finding ways to promote healthy eating in schools; finding ways to provide better grocery options in America's neighborhoods; and finding ways to make Americans more active.

The food industry has been under a lot of pressure to sell healthier products lately. The White House's new organic vegetable garden and the Let's Move initiative led by Michelle Obama is drawing attention to childhood obesity and calling for more exercise and better food choices among the national's youth, including healthier food on supermarket shelves and in American schools. Television shows such as Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution  are outraging Americans by drawing attention to what our children are really eating, both in school and at home.

Current medical research backs them up. Every week, it seems, new studies are released showing that obesity and illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension have reached epidemic levels among Americans. What is worse, obesity related illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure that were once found only in adults are now commonly occurring in teenagers and even children. Over a third of the children in the US are overweight or obese, a troubling statistic that has doubled in the past 20 years.

It is an expensive problem. According to U.S. federal agencies, health problems caused by obesity such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes cost the United States an estimated $150 billion each year. Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that obesity costs Americans extra money in health care, because "the typical obese beneficiary costs roughly almost $1,500 more per year than someone with a normal body mass index." Mr. Orszag went on to add that the health risks associated with obesity are "substantially larger" than with smoking, noting that obesity adds the equivalent of 20 years of chronic health conditions to the aging process.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association agrees that the federal government needs to do something about what the nation's children are being fed at school. "The school environment is a special environment where having a government play a role in setting the standards for what's sold makes sense," Scott Faber, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association told reporters yesterday, concluding "I think the public marketplace is a different environment."

The food industry, of course, is in the business of making money. In a capitalist society, that is the way it should be. However, we have always recognized that the interests of public health and safety outweighs free enterprise. Getting FDA approval for new drugs and food additives and food labeling mandates are widely recognized as valid uses of federal regulatory authority.

The food industry hopes to avoid the imposition of federally mandated levels of fat, salt and sodium in processed foods. By offering to police themselves, they hope to set less stringent and intrusive nutritional standards. But can the food industry be trusted to do the right thing by America's children?

So far, the answer appears to be no. Pamela Bailey, chairman of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, says that the food industry is already making food healthier. "We've heard from consumers and you can see this in the companies in terms of how they've changed their recipes," she said. Pepsico, for example, has promised to cut the saturated fat, sodium and sugar in its products by 2010– b it has not offered any specifics and a decade from now is too late for the generation of school-aged children facing obesity today.

The food industry does not have a good track record when it comes to making processed food truly healthier. Items marketed as lower in fat have added sugar and salt to make up for it, and low sodium food items replace salt with artificial flavorings and chemicals designed to boost flavor, including glutamates such as msg. "Organic" and "natural" versions of junk foods such as Doritos and Oreos are no healthier than the originals and often have higher calories and levels salt, fat and sugar than the original version.

Meanwhile, self-serving and disingenuous food industry websites ostensibly devoted to health initiatives such as the GMA's own Making Food Better  routinely offer more in the way of marketing and self-congratulatory propaganda than actual nutritional information and health advice. And recent studies suggesting that foods laden with fat, sugar and salt are actually addictive suggests that food manufacturers have an incentive to keep levels of fat, sugars and sodium high to increase profits.

What do you think? Can we trust food manufacturers to make and market healthy food to America's children, or does the federal government need to set nutritional standards and regulate the food industry to counter the epidemic rates of obesity in the United States? Let us know what you think in the comments section below: there is no need to register or enter your email address. Or spread the word on your social networks: the ShareThis button makes it easy to post this article to sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Twitter, Facebook, Newsvine and Technorati.