According to their vision statement, the Dietitians of Canada purports itself to be,
"the voice of the profession"I think they forgot to mention they're also quite comfortable being the mouthpiece of Big Food.
While I recognize that physician groups aren't immune from conflict of interest (primarily stemming from Big Pharma), I know as a physician I'd be fairly uncomfortable to land on the Canadian Medical Association's website and find advertising there from drug companies.
Imagine my surprise when learning that the "Members only" section of the Dietitians of Canada (DoC) website does in fact have Big Food advertisements as evidenced in the screen captures below (click them to open them in a large window) where the first shills for President's Choice Blue Menu products and the second for eggs:
Apparently if you keep refreshing the page, new ads pop up.
But let's put internet advertising aside, we can chalk that up to poor judgment, (UPDATE - Poor judgment shared by the Canadian Medical Association where I also found some internet drug ads) I mean after all, it's not like it's a clinical practice guideline or a resource manual for the profession.
Ummmm, about the DoC professional resource manuals....
After a bit more sniffing on their website I came across this link to the Dietitians of Canada 2001 National Nutrition Month Resource Manual for Dietitians (I realize it's 2008, but this is still featured prominently on the DoC website and is one of many Fact Sheets explicitly endorsed and implicitly steered by Big Food).
Read through it and you'll find it was sponsored (paid for) by the Canadian Sugar Institute, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, the Dairy Bureau of Canada and Kraft. Ominously the Canadian Sugar Institute was referred to as an "internal sponsor" while eggs, dairy and Kraft were merely, "official sponsors".
Think the sponsors were just silent spectators?
Then how come there's giant pictures of dairy products throughout; 3 pages on encouraging Canadians to drink more milk (replete with a section on getting the lactose intolerants to drink milk too); and two pages devoted to encouraging Canadians to eat more eggs?
There's also messaging that sugar is a carbohydrate just like fruit and this great quobesity,
"With the exception of dental caries, there is no evidence to show that sugar causes health problems. There is no specific limit or recommendation to reduce the amount of sugar we are currently eating."Did the Dietitians of Canada really just steer their members as the "voice of their profession" to educate the public that sugar doesn't contribute to health problems and that you can eat as much of it as you want and not worry?
Looking at the 2008 Nutrition Month page that details some information about sponsors, DoC spells out who'll they'll happily take money from:
"Food products and Manufacturers", "Food Retailers".No real limitations there either - basically if you makes or sell a food that can conceivably fit in Canada's Food Guide, you're welcome to play.
Marion Nestle, world-renowned nutrition expert (don't believe me, click here and check out her rather ridiculous C.V.) on her wonderful blog What to Eat details the equivalent practice within the American Dietetic Association (ADA). Here's a recent excerpt with her call to action for her fellow ADA members (feel free to mentally swap DoC for ADA),
"Respected ADA colleagues: as long as your organization 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) and neither will yours. Consider the ADA’s Nutrition Fact Sheets, for example, each with its very own corporate sponsor (scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the second page to see who paid for the Facts). Is the goal of ADA really the same as the goal of the sponsors–to sell the sponsor’s food products? Is this a good way to get important scientific messages to the public? ADA members: how about doing something about this!"Now I know that I have many Canadian readers who are registered dietitians. What do you think about the involvement of the food industry with DoC?
[Hat tip to a concerned dietitian who threw the screen caps my way]
Posts
Thank you. The Dairy Board, for instance, has its fingers in so many pies it's not surprising that North Americans believe that we can't survive without consuming dairy on a regular basis; that our children will whither and die without milk every day. They fund schools that offer dietician/nutritional programs, then they sit on committees that develop Canada's Food Guide and have dieticians on the committees as well -- which is why dairy has always been so heavily represented.And this is only the tip of the iceberg on how we are manipulated into making food "choices"
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of curious. What is wrong with having low-fat dairy products (meaning skim milk) in your diet?
ReplyDeleteA lot of low fat dairy products have "modified corn starch" added to them. I don't think that's a good thing, although I'm not entirely sure what modified corn starch is...
ReplyDeleteI feel like that loser in the schoolyard who gets made fun of and then takes three days to come up with a comeback. Even now, as a student who isn't completely in touch with the inner workings of DC (not DoC), I'm not sure whether I can make a good argument, but I feel obliged to butt in. On that note, I'm surprised there haven't been more dietitians responding to your post.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest reality is that as an organization, DC needs money. Sure, all of its members pay membership dues, but to pull a national campaign off like Nutrition Month, we need additional sponsors. Yes, I agree that the food industry generally does not have the consumers' best interest in mind when it comes to nutritional health, but if you could think of other associations/corporations/industries who would help DC foot the bill and provide the same degree of publicity for Nutrition Month or any of their other campaigns without this conflict of interest, I'm sure they would be delighted to know.
Other than that, I'm sure you and I both know individual dietitians who have voiced their dissent toward how certain Nutrition Month campaigns and the most recent Canada's Food Guide have been presented. I know DC is supposed to be the voice of the profession and I know they really try to get member opinion through lots of open consultations, but with members across the country, you can't please everyone (just like how the government's supposed to be the voice of the country but does it please each and every one of us? Certainly not.)
I personally think DC is doing a lot of great things. In addition to trying to make dietitians more visible to the public, they also put in a lot of effort to promote evidence-based practice. This is most obvious through the Practice-Based Evidence in Nutrition Service (http://www.dieteticsatwork.com/pen/), which is basically like a clinical nutrition manual that is constantly being updated. I'm also part of the Diabetes, Obesity and Cardiovascular network, which sends constant "news flashes" that highlights the latest studies published in that area of research.
Finally, I think it is important that dietitians have a partnership with the food industry. People don't see the doctor everyday, let alone a dietitian. However, people are faced with food choices everyday and food packaging and the media is where people get most of their nutrition messages. (I should know, my mom thinks she's a nutrition whiz) Obviously the balance of power is still unfortunately mostly in the corporations hands, but if we as dietitians don't build a partnership, attempt to create some checks and balances and attempt to use the industry as an avenue to reach the public, then I think it would send a worse message to the public because it makes dietitians look out of touch with how Canadians eat and it would be much easier for the industry to spread nutrition myths.
Hi Vincci,
ReplyDeleteI don't think the issue is Big Food support, the issue is Big Food influence as it seems that DC is quite comfortable letting Big Food dictate messaging that then gets disseminated under the DC's banner - a banner that according to DC is meant to serve as "the voice of the profession".
Clearly the examples I provided demonstrate a non-arms length involvement with dairy, eggs and sugar in resources put forth by DC as a resource for its members.
I of course could cite many more examples and I'm sure so could you.
Doing so helps to sell products and does so at times in stark contrast with DC's vision and their reported values of both integrity and credibility.
I'm also surprised there weren't more comments here - that said, I've received a fair number of comments privately to my email letting me know that as dietitians, many are embarrassed by the relationship DC has cultivated with Big Food.
Bottom line, I don't think that the fact that DC needs money, or that dietitians work with food, gives DC a get out of jail free card for compromising evidence based nutrition.
Thanks though for the very thoughtful comments Vincci - we're certainly allowed to disagree,
Yoni
Here's another website - Mission Nutrition - a nutrition teaching resource created by Canadian dieticians, with the Kellogg's logo displayed on every web page, and on every page of the lesson plans. http://www.missionnutrition.ca/missionnutrition/index.html
ReplyDelete(I was asked to do the food styling for a visiting dietician who was on a media tour talking about healthy snacking with the Canada Food Guide, and I was asked to have Cheerios and Multigrain Cheerios on the display, as well as chocolate milk.)
Thanks for replying to my rambles, Yoni.
ReplyDeleteI continue to believe that a relationship between dietitians and the food industry needs to exist, but I do see your point in how that's gone a little overboard in the case of DC. I guess I was just a little taken aback by your use of the words "sell out", especially since there are so many individual members who are doing impressive work and because there has been such a push for evidence-based nutrition.
I would be really interested in seeing the inner workings of these relationships and whether DC really does need to "give up" all this power to the food industry messages.
So I guess we're not disagreeing after all.