Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back
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Over the past two years, concerned Americans have finally begun to ask: Who is to blame for the growing public health crisis of obesity and diet-related illnesses? Is the junk food industry at fault, or is it all just a matter of personal and parental responsibility? How can we fight back with workable solutions?While much of the attention remains focused at the national policy level, the real story is taking place in states and communities all over the country, where people are attempting to “take back” their food supply from greedy corporations. Too often media accounts of this heated debate portray the food industry as being “part of the solution,” missing the behind-the-scenes struggles.Appetite for Profit describes food industry lobbying, front groups, and other tactics that operate to undermine nutrition policy in schools and elsewhere. It explains how to counter attack. Additionally, this book tells how to see through corporate promises; illustrates the importance of rhetoric to control the debate; informs how to respond; celebrates the unsung heroes in the fight; and provides reliable resources on how to get involved. This enlightening book provides hope with real-life examples of winning strategies and a road map for reform. Publishers Weekly Simon, a health policy expert and law professor, skewers the food industry for undermining the health of Americans with "nutrient deficient factory made pseudofoods." In lawyerly fashion, she explains the ABCs of the business imperative of "Big Food" (Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and McDonald's, among many others): make short-term profit without regard to the product's nutritional value or societal effects. Permissible tactics, she says, include false advertising, sham "healthy" food initiatives and co-opting the government, press and academia. Simon also argues that food-industry advocates use front groups to attack critics and spread misinformation about nutritional needs. Simon also chastises her fellow food activists for applauding all "steps in the right direction," no matter how inadequate; the press for its passive publication of scientifically dubious industry statements; and the government for abandoning effective regulation of the food industry. Her case made, Simon offers a host of suggestions and a manual-like set of directions to parents and other food activists on how to work with legislatures, school boards and the media to create a "just food system" that is "sustainable, affordable, accessible, and convenient." (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
