The single most insurmountable obstacle in the way of solving the problem of childhood obesity is dishonesty!On Friday, we celebrated World Diabetes Day. Much was made of the implementation in one Danish province of the use of a recently developed programme for children that was designed to achieve sustainable weight loss. In 2010 in the US, a White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity made four pivotal recommendations: empowering parents and caregivers; providing healthy food in school; improving access to healthy and affordable foods and increasing physical activity.
Conspicuously absent in any of these foundational pillars is any wholly 'negative' admonition. None of the recommendations emphatically advise Americans to either "avoid" foods containing x ingredient or "do not feed" your newborn child artificial infant formulas that contain 'x, y or z.' And this is where the profound and immutable dishonesty resides.A negative admonition is anathema to the global food industry. It negatively affects profit margins and "creates unnecessary fear and concern among consumers." Many are unaware that to a significant extent, it was the strong lobby by the US food industry that delayed the publication of the first ever Surgeon General's Report in 1988 (subjected as it was to innumerable revisions) and it is that same industry that has stymied since then, the further publication of any similar report since that time.
Food corporations simply do not like to entertain the stirring of public concern over what they add to the food you and I feed our infants. We live in a world in which breastfeeding is "encouraged" but we cannot afford granting mothers the necessary time away from their paid work to do so. GDP growth is God and maternity leave is unproductive. The majority of infant formulas contain high fructose corn syrup–a metabolic poison. Some foods we regard as sweets today were originally marketed as "health foods" for children eg, Horlick's brand 'malted milk' and chocolate pudding.
We ingest a potentially dangerous toxic waste–fluoride added to toothpaste, water and table salt–because we are told that it prevents dental caries. We are never told that its effect is PURELY topical; we do not need to swallow it! Gerber, a subsidiary of the giant food corporation Nestle, uses "100 per cent whey protein partially hydrolysed"–a waste product of cheese-making–as the main ingredient in newborn formula (Gerber's Good Start Gentle Formula), marketing it as a "valid" strategy in the way of preventing "atopic allergy," ie eczema in newborn babies! At least the US Federal Trade Commission was honest enough to file an official complaint against this preposterous claim.Poor feeding of our babies and children will continue to be the cause of their ill-health–obesity included–that no single "programme" or multiple lifestyle programmes will undo until we demand honesty and integrity from the rich untouchables who continue to peddle their poisons as "food."
Steve Smith
Via e-mail