Food and Restaurant Industries' Lobby Buys Ads Questioning Obesity Concerns

George Orwell would have had a good belly laugh about a lobbying group funded by the food and restaurant industries naming itself the Center for Consumer Freedom. This group just bought ads in some of the nation's bigger papers trumpeting a new study from the National Center on Health Statistics that suggests earlier figures from the Center for Disease Control, of which the NCHS is a part, were wrong in suggesting that obesity kills 400,000 American annually. The food group wants the nation to know that that the real number is 25,000 -- only eight times the number who died on September 11, 2001. Pass the cheese fries.

The Center's website (which has a .com rather than .org suffix -- one may draw one's own conclusion) tries to belittle the fact that Americans are the fattest people on the planet. It notes that the Surgeon General has said obesity is as dangerous as terrorism (actually as noted above it's at least 8 times worse). And it says a Harvard expert has compared obesity to a tsunami headed to America (in 1946, Hawaii lost 159 people to monster wave, and in 1960, another 61). And the director of the CDC, the Center mocks, called it worse than the Black Death (OK, that is excessive).

Why are the numbers in the new study different, the Center wonders. Well, the 400,000 figure goes back to 1948 and "didn't adjust for improved medical care." The new study uses more recent data. OK, so medicine is better at saving fat people from the effects of their condition. It appears that the food and restaurant industry believes that since an ounce of prevention is coming out of its pockets, a pound of cure someone else has to pay for is preferable.

Now, the Center claims its purpose is to protect the consumers' right to choose (and that's great). Its own website says it best, "The growing cabal of 'food cops,' health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know 'what's best for you' are pushing against our basic freedoms. We're here to push back." Well, heck, maybe the Defense budget isn't such a great investment when America has these guys around (although wasn't the nation founded by violent radicals?). What sticks in the craw worse than a Big Mac is the Center's mistaking "freedom" for "ignorance."

This Center is not about consumer choice, but rather profits for its members -- which, when one considers it rationally, is the only responsible thing for it to support. Darden Restaurants (owner of the Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains) and Applebee's International have no business spending their shareholders' money on consumer choice. The last thing they should pursue is the right of the consumer to choose someone else's product. It is irresponsible of those two companies to participate in the Center's actions. It is interesting to note that neither company has admitted it funds the Center (although a denial would be reassuring), and the Center's website says, "Many of the companies and individuals who support the Center financially have indicated that they want anonymity as contributors. They are reasonably apprehensive about privacy and safety in light of the violence some activists groups have adopted as a 'game plan' to impose their views." Anonymous donors? This comes from an organization that proudly notes on its Activishcash.com website just where Greenpeace, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the Union of Concerned Scientists get their money. The only thing worse than propaganda is propaganda by amateurs.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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