Food & Beverage (page195)

A new study in the March issue of American Journal of Public Health challenges some of the scarier rhetoric put forth by nannies promoting the so-called obesity epidemic. According to the researchers, people with body mass indexes between 25 and 29, who the nannies have described as dangerously overweight, are at no greater risk for early mortality. In fact, they report such people may suffer needlessly from stigmatization.

The Columbus Dispatch questions nannies' baseless claims about the benefits of organic foods, pointing out that even the head of the Organic Trade Association recently had to admit that organic foods "are not safer or more nutritious than other foods."

Reporting on the growing number of overweight Americans, Toyko's leading newspaper points "to the ever-increasing size of the portions served at restaurants as silent testimony to the fact that Americans are eating more than they need." Stateside, the Christian Science Monitor's look at fighting obesity with fad diets sideswipes the restaurant industry: "In recent years, portion sizes in restaurants have increased dramatically, but for what useful purpose?"

The nannies' campaign to link obesity to restaurant portion sizes gets another plug (the fifth one this week), this time in the Providence Journal-Bulletin. "Some of the extra calories we're taking in probably come from eating out," writes reporter Linda Sevelia. Why? "Portions of many popular restaurant items have grown many-fold."

From deploring Kelly Brownell's fat tax to attacking CSPI's call for lawsuits against restaurants, two recent editorials in Charleston's Post and Courier and the Cincinnati Enquirer apparently draw upon Consumer Freedom research to take on the food police. ("The calorie cops demand a Twinkie tax," The Cincinnati Enquirer, 2/26/00.)

In a USDA forum, diet book author Barry Sears said, "We need to view food as a potential drug…as Americans are the fattest we have ever been." Could this be a harbinger of public policy to come?

Claiming "the U.S. has become a hothouse for obesity," the Center for Science in the Public Interest's (CSPI) Michael Jacobson is pushing for new taxes on snack food and calorie listings on menus. ("Obesity in America," Nutrition Action Healthletter, March 2000.)

The Center for Science in the Public Interest's fatally flawed "liquid candy" report on soda pops up once again. This time, it's an article that cites CSPI's junk science on soda at length, making wrongful accusations that school officials promote teenage obesity, caffeine addiction, attention-deficit disorder, anxiety and sleeplessness by accepting soda makers' support for school programs. In 1998, CSPI issued a retraction for the bad data in their attack on carbonated beverages, but the flawed "study" keeps showing up.

Thirty years ago, student newspapers were filled with warnings against racism and Vietnam. Today, the University of Texas-Arlington school paper is going out of its way (and out of the bounds of reality) to warn students that the restaurant foods they like to eat are killing them.

New research finds that chocolate can help prevent clogged arteries. As if on cue, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Michael Jacobson, known for baselessly raving against anything that tastes good, blasts promotion of the newfound benefits.