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COPYRIGHT 2005 Mothering Magazine
When Maine state representative Sean Faircloth decided to become an advocate for public health, he never expected to be called a "food Nazi" on national television. Yet within two minutes of appearing on Fox News, the lawmaker was fielding accusations of being both a Nazi and a Communist for daring to defend his state's proposal to place a minimal tax on sodas. That's the kind of tactic that Faircloth and other champions of children's health are facing in heated battles being waged across the country against the mighty food industry.
Readers of Mothering well know how the junk-food industry markets its unhealthy products incessantly to children, especially in schools. (1) Over the last two years, increased focus on the dual epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes has resulted in a groundswell of action. Of particular concern is the out-of-control sale of sodas and other unhealthy beverages in schools. Last year, a survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest revealed that 74. percent of beverage options and 85 percent of snacks in school vending machines were of poor nutritional quality. (2)
Even the US Senate has taken notice. Last October, Senator Edward Kennedy introduced a bill to require schools that receive federal funds to establish policies to "ban vending machines that sell foods of poor or minimal nutritional value," such as soda, soft drinks, and candy, and to encourage the consumption of water in school.
Not waiting for federal action, parents, teachers, policy makers, and others from Philadelphia to Seattle, from California to Connecticut, are organizing to take back their schools from the clutches of Coke and Pepsi. But as advocates are learning, megacorporations don't go down without a fight--not with so much money at stake. Schools mean big business to the soda industry, not just for the cash they generate but also for the opportunity to create lifelong brand loyalties among an impressionable and captive audience.
At the same time, companies such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo care enormously about their corporate image and are spending large sums of money on public relations in the wake of increasing criticism. PepsiCo has created an entire website devoted to convincing the public that the company cares about children's health. (3) And last June, at the Time/ABC News Summit on Obesity, then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson sang the praises of Coca-Cola for ending exclusive contracting in schools. Unfortunately, this image is not quite accurate. While Coca-Cola has developed "Model Guidelines for School Beverage Partnerships" that no longer require exclusivity, the practice continues, thanks in part to lengthy contract terms. (4)
If the nation's top health official can be duped, how can the rest of us know the truth? Sophisticated public relations efforts tell only one side of the story--the side that industry wants you to see. Behind the slick materials and pronouncements of "corporate responsibility"...
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