Pinkwashing.
If you haven't come across the term it refers to the use of breast cancer fundraising to sell unhealthy products or services and in so doing provide them with a sheen of goodness.
Not sure that anyone's ever going to be able to do anything about it, but that doesn't change the fact it's reprehensible.
Apologists will likely bleat that I'm bashing corporations who are trying to do something good.
They forget the fact that corporations do things to sell products and that engaging in non-profitable activities would in fact put publicly run companies at the risk of shareholder lawsuits.
If corporations truly wanted to just do good, they'd hand over big juicy cheques to charities. If their donations are dependent on sales you can bet your bottom dollar the fundraising tie in will be making them at least as much money as they ultimately end up giving to the charity.
Regarding Cheetos and other potato chips in the battle against breast cancer I'll remind you that according to the National Cancer Institute, obesity increases the relative risk of developing post menopausal breast cancer by 50%. They also report that maintaining a body mass index of 25 could prevent 11,000 to 18,000 deaths per year from breast cancer in U.S. women over age 50, that breast cancer is more likely to be detected at a later stage in obese women than in lean women, and that weight gain during adulthood has been found to be the most consistent and strongest predictor of breast cancer risk in studies in which it has been examined.
[Hat tip to Ken Leebow from Feed Your Head]
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I do the Run for the Cure every year. I noticed that a lot of sponsors of the CBCF that puts it on create products that are linked to cancer... especially the cosmetics companies
ReplyDeletehttp://gamereviewwiki.com/bikinibirthday/2010/10/18/buying-pink/
Agreed. This is successful but deplorable advertising. :(
ReplyDeleteYoni,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the hat tip and spreading the word about this bizarre marketing tactic.
I would like to make one other point. Unrelated to this pinkwashing, I use Cheetos as the poster child for egregious front of package labeling.
It states 0 grams of trans fats on the package. When you turn the package over and read the ingredients, you observe that it contains partially hydrogenated oils -- in other words, trans fat.
How do companies get away with that? I've explained it here: http://bit.ly/ccOz6n
Unfortunately, far too many processed products have trans fats in them ... and, they try to fool us by saying zero trans fats.
Best,
Ken Leebow
The CBCF and CCF both have a regrettable focus on cure almost to the exclusion of prevention. The "for the cure" rubric says it all... the money the raise goes overwhelmingly to research on how to cure people who already have cancer, as opposed to spending money on reducing exposure to known risk factors so that less people get cancer in the first place.
ReplyDeleteStill, I'm appalled to see CBCF promoting something that will actually increase dietery fat intake (36 little bags of Cheetos and Doritos - we're not talking a one-time treat!) when this is a KNOWN risk factor for breast cancer.
For example, here's one large prospective cohort study that found a positive correlation between dietary fat intake and breast cancer (PubMed): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17374835
Excellent Article. Just the point I've been trying to make. I posted a link to your article on the "Pinkwashing Hall of Shame" page on Facebook. You can find that group at http://www.facebook.com/nopinkwashing.
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