Category Archives: politics

healthy habits, nutrition, policy, politics

Big food go lite for the First Lady

January 18, 2014 blackfriar

Included only in the interests of balance, US big food exceeded a target to reduce calories – likely a modest, meaningless target, easily gamed? due to the GFC?
the denominator for the 6.4 trillion calories is 60.4 trillion calories
between 2007 and 2011, better-for-you, lower-calorie foods and beverages also drove financial performance for many of these same companies. Companies with a higher percentage of their sales coming from such products recorded stronger sales growth, higher operating profits, superior shareholder returns, and better company reputations.

http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/2014/01/major-food–beverage-companies-remove-6-4-trillion-calories–fro.html

Major Food, Beverage Companies Remove 6.4 Trillion Calories from U.S. Marketplace

Independent evaluation finds industry exceeded Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation pledge to remove 1.5 trillion calories by more than 400 percent.

January 9, 2014 thumbnail

Princeton, N.J.—Sixteen of the nation’s leading food and beverage companies sold 6.4 trillion fewer calories in the United States in 2012 than they did in 2007, according to the findings of an independent evaluation funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and announced today. The companies, acting together as part of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), pledged to remove 1 trillion calories from the marketplace by 2012, and 1.5 trillion by 2015. The evaluation found that, thus far, the companies have exceeded their 2015 pledge by more than 400 percent.

The participating companies sold 60.4 trillion calories in 2007, the year defined as the baseline measurement for the pledge. In 2012, they sold 54 trillion calories. This 6.4 trillion calorie decline translates into a reduction of 78 calories per person in the United States per day. This is the first effort to track all the calories sold by such major companies in the American marketplace.

“It’s extremely encouraging to hear that these leading companies appear to have substantially exceeded their calorie-reduction pledge,” said James S. Marks, MD, senior vice president and director of the Health Group at RWJF. “They must sustain that reduction, as they’ve pledged to do, and other food companies should follow their lead to give Americans the lower-calorie foods and beverages they want.”

In October 2009, more than 40 of the nation’s largest retailers, non-profit organizations, food and beverage manufacturers and trade associations launched HWCF, with the goal of helping to reduce obesity, especially childhood obesity, by 2015. Sixteen companies participated in the calorie-reduction pledge, announced in May 2010 as one pillar of the work of HWCF. The pledge was part of an agreement between HWCF and the Partnership for a Healthier America, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to advancing the goals of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative by working with the private sector to end childhood obesity.

Together the 16 companies produced 36 percent of the calories from all packaged foods and beverages, items such as cereals, snacks, canned soups, and bottled beverages, sold in the United States in 2007. In 2010 the companies noted that, in order to meet the pledge, they likely would develop new lower-calorie options, change existing products so that they had fewer calories, and change portion sizes to introduce more lower-calorie packaging.

In order to evaluate the impact of the pledge, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) combined data on foods and beverages sold by participating companies with nutritional information for those products. They then determined which individual products were included as part of the pledge and tracked sales of those products over time. All data used were publicly or commercially available. The full, peer-reviewed study is expected to be published later this year.

“The companies whose sales we analyzed have a big influence over the foods and beverages almost every American eats and drinks every day,” said Barry Popkin, PhD, the W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Health at UNC, who is leading the evaluation team. “The evaluation system we’ve created will enable to us to determine how changes to what’s sold influences what people consume.”

Other research has shown that, between 2007 and 2011, better-for-you, lower-calorie foods and beverages also drove financial performance for many of these same companies. Companies with a higher percentage of their sales coming from such products recorded stronger sales growth, higher operating profits, superior shareholder returns, and better company reputations.

“Making the shift from traditional items to lower-calorie ones is not just the right thing for customers, it’s the right thing for these companies’ bottom lines,” said C. Tracy Orleans, PhD, senior scientist at RWJF. “The next big question is how these changes to what’s available on store shelves actually impact the health of children and families.”

The 16 companies committed to the HWCF calorie-reduction pledge include:

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC
Campbell Soup Company
ConAgra Foods (includes Ralston Foods)
General Mills, Inc.
Hillshire Brands (previously Sara Lee Corporation)
Kellogg Company
Kraft Foods Group/Mondelez
Mars, Incorporated
McCormick & Company, Inc.
Nestlé USA
PepsiCo, Inc.
Post Foods
The Coca-Cola Company
The Hershey Company
The J.M. Smucker Company
Unilever

cool, healthy habits, nutrition, policy, politics

Top piece… obesity and diabetes

January 17, 2014 blackfriar

This guy is an arts/law student at Sydney University and he does a terrific job of crystallizing the issue… recognised in him winning the Wentworth Prize. Good on him.

Obesity cannot be controlled through personal responsibility alone

Policymakers have invested in the exhausted, glib explanation that maintaining nutritional health is a matter of personal and parental responsibility. But is it?

- Ben Brooks
- theguardian.com, Monday 13 January 2014 12.25 AEST

Assuming collective responsibility for obesity and diabetes would likely require highly invasive disincentives like sugar or beverage taxes. Photograph: Foodfolio/Alamy

McDonald’s cookies have an energy density comparable to hydrazine. Hydrazine is a rocket fuel used to manoeuvre spacecraft in orbit. It was astonishing, then, to watch a small child graze through two boxes of the desiccated biscuits in one sitting. His parents watched on, preoccupied with their own colossal meals: a noxious amalgam of meat, grease and sugar.

The prime minister, once our federal health minister, has explained his attitude. “The only person responsible for what goes into my mouth is me,” he said, “and the only people who are responsible for what goes into kids’ mouths are the parents”. The Gillard government agreed, ignoring recommendations produced by its own preventative health taskforce to tax unhealthy foods and eliminate junk food advertising directed at children.

Policymakers have invested in the exhausted, glib explanation that maintaining nutritional health is a matter of personal and parental responsibility – a corporate defence strategy adapted from the tobacco and alcohol industries. By implication, obesity is the result of individualirresponsibility: poor dietary choices, idle lifestyles, questionable parenting, or inadequate resolve.

Intuitively, it is easy to understand the political appeal of this doctrine. It conforms to cultural stereotypes, that “fat people” are slothful and indolent. Moreover, assuming collective responsibility for obesity and diabetes would likely require highly invasive disincentives like sugar or beverage taxes. Policymakers are eager to avoid the political liability associated with these proposals.

But this “personal responsibility” paradigm is troubling. First, it reflects popular indifference to the obesity epidemic. It is properly called an epidemic. Over 63% of Australian adults are overweight or obese. A fifthof all cancer deaths in the US are attributable to obesity. A quarter of the world population will likely acquire type 2 diabetes, while diabetes sufferers constitute two-thirds of all the deaths caused by cardiovascular disease. Globally, abnormal body mass index accounts for 23% of disability-adjusted life-years.

And if the number of sufferers continues to grow, children born today will enjoy shorter life expectancies than both their parents and grandparents.

Yet numbers make no sense unless they are properly communicated. Both obesity and type 2 diabetes are deeply human tragedies, but that is yet to register among the public and policymakers. They are tragedies that happen to “other people”, after a seemingly predictable descent into sedentary living and poor eating. Neither disease has the terrifying arbitrariness of cancer, nor the abruptness of a sudden heart attack – neither seems to warrant the same commitment to prevention.

Coca-Cola CEO: 'Obesity is a serious problem'. — Coca-Cola CEO: ‘Obesity is a serious problem’. Photograph: Geoff Abbott/Demotix/Corbis

Australians, for instance, remain acutely aware of the causal links between smoking and lung cancer or emphysema. Anti-smoking campaigns here are intensely visual and heavily funded. Comparable anti-obesity campaigns receive a third of the funding. Obesity is substantially lower as a preventative health priority.

Second, the personal responsibility doctrine allows government and industry to play an interminable game of pass-the-parcel with obesity control. At its most basic, obesity develops when a person’s energy consumption exceeds their energy expenditure. Commercial interests are best served by preserving the rate of consumption, and instead appealing to exercise and sport. “Think. Drink. Move.” intones Coca-Cola. “Confectionery is designed to be enjoyed,” writes Cadbury, “as part of a balanced diet and active lifestyle.”

Central, then, to the corporate responsibility mission is a selective emphasis on physical activity over diet, and a denial of the good food/bad food dichotomy. Blame is deflected instead onto the consumer. The CEO of Coca-Cola, Muhtar Kent, provides a typical illustration of this disingenuous, faux-conscientious marketing. “Obesity is a serious problem. We know that,” he silkily conceded. “And we agree that Americans need to be more active and take greater responsibility for their diets.”

So policymakers are stuck in a trap of industry’s design. Through the personal responsibility conceit, the debate over tackling obesity has been reduced to a simplistic binary: consumption control versus the promotion of sport and exercise.

It is a neat and digestible expression of the basic obesity problem, but it lazily defers some crucial questions. Consumption is the half of the obesity equation which has the greatest effect, and over which we have the most control. But governments have been caught up in the food politics of “energy-in-energy-out” without asking why 10% of the Australian population visits McDonald’s every day despite school curriculums saturated in dietary education, why Indigenous communities suffer disproportionately high rates of obesity and diabetes, or why ultra-processed foods are cheaper than healthy alternatives.

Clearly, understandings of personal responsibility will play an important role in any obesity control regime. Eliminating it entirely is unhelpful, and would only sustain the worn cliché that obesity is an exclusively genetic problem, to be cured rather than prevented.

Yet a country does not get fat for lack of responsibility. That cannot explain the rapid growth or severity of the obesity-diabetes epidemic. It is a caricature of the complex factors which influence the lifestyle patterns of individuals, and it fails to address the roots of overconsumption: cost of living, manipulative marketing, nutritional misinformation and – often overlooked – simple palatability.

Australia is the muffin top of Asia, and it is killing our citizens. Dispensing with the fiction of personal responsibility is the first step to a truly holistic solution – one which finds an appropriate balance between education, industry self-regulation, and firm government intervention.

musings, politics, silly

West Wing: Why are we changing maps?

January 14, 2014 blackfriar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM

politics, quotes & aphorisms

MEAD: What a small group of thoughtful, committed people can do

January 13, 2014 blackfriar

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”

Margaret Mead

business, entrepreneurship, healthcare, management and leadership, policy, politics

HBR Blog: Resolving Health Care Conflicts with a walk in the woods

January 12, 2014 blackfriar

4 step process to resolving conflict:

Have each stakeholder articulate their “self-interests” so that they are heard by the others. What does each need to get from this exchange?
Look at where the overlap among these self-interests reveals agreement, what we call the “enlarged interests.” In our experience, these agreements always outnumber the disagreements.
Collaborate to develop solutions to the remaining disagreements, or “enlightened interests.” This is the time for creative problem solving.
Certify what has now become a larger set of agreements, or “aligned interests.”

Any outstanding disagreements are held to the side for future negotiations.

[…….]

The inclusion of all stakeholders is essential because people only truly embrace solutions that they help create. Anytime that one party tries to impose something on another, the natural inclination of the imposed upon party is to resist. A little time spent upfront engaging in joint problem solving saves many hours — and headaches — that come with a mandate.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/four-steps-to-resolving-conflicts-in-health-care/

Four Steps to Resolving Conflicts in Health Care

by Barry Dorn, Leonard Marcus and Eric J. McNulty | 1:00 PM October 31, 2013

Conflict in health care has dominated the news in the United States lately with the political showdown over the Affordable Care Act followed by the shaky launch of the federal health insurance exchange. Conflict, however, is not new to the health care system; it is a fragmented landscape with many players with sometimes conflicting interests and objectives. Yet the nuances of negotiation and conflict resolution are too rarely taught in medical or business schools.

We have been engaged in health care negotiation and conflict resolution for two decades. We have worked on conflicts as mundane as work assignments and as complex as hospital mergers. We use and teach a simple four-step structured process that works in cases ranging from simple one-on-one interactions to extended multi-party discussions.

After assembling representatives of all stakeholders in a conflict, the first step is to have each stakeholder articulate their “self-interests” so that they are heard by the others. What does each need to get from this exchange? The second step is to look at where the overlap among these self-interests reveals agreement, what we call the “enlarged interests.” In our experience, these agreements always outnumber the disagreements. The third step is to collaborate to develop solutions to the remaining disagreements, or “enlightened interests.” This is the time for creative problem solving. The fourth step is to certify what has now become a larger set of agreements, or “aligned interests.” Any outstanding disagreements are held to the side for future negotiations. We’ve taught people in as little as 30 minutes how to use this approach. (See our book Renegotiating Health Care for more detail on the process.)

We call this process the Walk in the Woods after a play that dramatized a well-known negotiation over nuclear arms reduction. The delegations from the United States and the Soviet Union were at loggerheads. During a break, the two lead negotiators went for a walk during which they unearthed their personal as well as each nation’s deeper, shared interests in peace and security. This understanding enabled them to break the deadlock and move forward.

The same negotiation principles that can reduce nuclear stockpiles can be effectively applied even at the front lines in health care. For example, there is often pressure to change who does what when new technologies are deployed or initiatives are undertaken to lower costs. Consider the situation in a traditional orthopedic practice where a physician sees every patient who comes through the door. Is this really best for the patient, the practice, and the larger system?

Most patients who arrive at an orthopedic office suffer from straightforward conditions such as a simple, non-displaced fracture or a sprain. These can be adequately treated by a properly trained physician’s assistant (PA), and patients can typically be seen much more quickly by a PA than by a specialist. If outcome quality and patient satisfaction can be maintained and costs lowered, this should be an easy move to make. Such shifts in responsibility, however, are often resisted and the resulting conflict can be acrimonious. Why?

Both physicians and patients have come to expect to interact with each other. Doctors prize their clinical autonomy and their relationships with those they treat, and the fee-for-service model rewards them for taking care of patients themselves. Patients, meanwhile, want to be treated by an “M.D.” and often a board-certified specialist rather than their primary care physician (PCP). The PCPs value their relationships with the specialists in the network and focus on their gatekeeper role rather than stretching the scope of care they provide. Insurers want to control costs, of course, and they and others exert pressure to divert simple cases from high-cost specialists to less expensive physician’s assistants or other non-specialist care-givers. No one is happy with the resulting conflict: Orthopods fear losing their patients; patients are anxious about getting lesser care; PCPs worry that their relationships with specialists will erode; and insurers and administrators find the resistance by all parties frustrating, time-consuming, and expensive.

Now, imagine that the physicians in our orthopedic practice host an open house Walk in the Woods discussion that includes referring PCPs, patients, and representatives from insurers. Engaging in the four-step process, the parties would find that high outcome quality, patient satisfaction, and keeping care affordable are on everyone’s list of self-interests. Through the process, the orthopedists could educate both the PCPs and patients on when a specialist’s expertise is truly needed. Patients could articulate how they weigh the trade-off between waiting time and the provider they would see. The insurers could explain some of the cost implications of different options. One can envision the idea of physician’s assistants treating routine injuries emerging from the process as each party identifies the benefits that meet their combined and self-interests: The orthopods may be freed up to see a greater number of more complex and interesting cases; the PAs are able to work to the level of their ability; the PCPs expand their relationships with more members of the orthopedic practice; the insurer reimburses less for uncomplicated treatments; and patients would get appropriate care, save time, and help keep premiums down.

The two aspects of this approach that can be extrapolated to myriad other conflicts are the use of a structured process and inclusion of all key decision-making stakeholders. The structured process minimizes the ego battles and tangential scuffles by keeping all parties focused on productively resolving the central issues. Depending on the number of parties and complexity of the negotiation a Walk can take from 10 minutes to 10 days or more.

healthy habits, nutrition, policy, politics, words

Industry response to launch of Action on Sugar

January 12, 2014 blackfriar

increase fibre content (as a bulking agent) instead of reducing portion size – they have half the calories, but are more expensive and less stable.

New word – rheology: the study of the flow of matter, primarily in the liquid state.

Sugar under siege: Reformulation can win the battle, says Barry Callebaut

By Oliver Nieburg+, 09-Jan-2014

Related topics: Carbohydrates and fibers (sugar, starches), Chocolate and confectionery ingredients, Sweeteners (intense, bulk, polyols), Suppliers, R&D, The obesity problem, Health & Wellness, Confectionery

Replacing sugar with fibers in chocolate could be more effective in reducing global sugar consumption than cutting portion sizes, but will come at a cost, according to Barry Callebaut.

Campaign group Action on Sugar was established today with the aim of pressuring manufacturers to reduce sugar in products by 30% over the next four years. Its chairman told ConfectioneryNews that the organization favored cutting sugar by reducing portion sizes rather than substitution.

Portion control: Foolproof plan to cut calories?

Marijke De Brouwer, innovation manager at Barry Callebaut, said that global salt reduction came through reformulation, so why couldn’t sugar?

“Reducing the portion size is rather easy because it’s only playing with the weight, but with portion size you do not reduce the sugar percentage.”

Fibers for positive health impact

She argued that reformulation would have a greater impact and suggested replacing up to 30% of sugar in chocolate with fibers to perform a bulking function.

“It has a positive health impact. Fibers have some functional benefits versus sugar.”

A fiber replacement would help increase global fiber consumption and would also limit calories in a product since sugar is 4 kcal per gram and fibers 2 kcal per gram.

The cost

Asked why the practice of replacing sugar with fibers had not yet been widely adopted by the chocolate industry, De Brouwer said: “It’s because of the price impact.”

Barry Callebaut acknowledged that fibers were more expensive but would not say by how much.

Fibers may also impact processability depending on the application, potentially adding an extra cost to ensure products have the same rheology, taste and texture.

“If you want to guarantee it has 30% less sugar, you need to avoid contamination,” added De Brouwer.

She said that brands could feasibly combine reformulation with portion size reduction to cut sugar.

Health implications

Action on Sugar contends that added sugar in food and drinks is an unnecessary source of calories in the diet that is responsible for rising global obesity. It adds that sugar is linked to other damaging health effects such as type II diabetes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that no more than 10% of calories in a person’s diet should come from added sugars for optimal health, but The Sunday Times claims to be in possession of a leaked WHO draft document that says the organization is considering cutting its recommendation to 5% in light of fresh scientific research linking sugar to obesity, heart disease and tooth decay.

What’s the reference?

Action on Sugar hopes manufacturers will reduce sugar by 30% in products over the next four years compared to current levels of sugar in that product.

For example, if Mars opted only for portion control, a 51 g Mars bar would become 42 g.

healthy habits, nutrition, policy, politics

Consensus Action on Salt & Health (CASH) launches

January 11, 2014 blackfriar

And so it begins… the long march to effect entirely legitimate change.

With a strong and independent food regulator, the UK is the western democracy best placed to see this through. All strength to their arm – it’s going to be a doozy!

From Marion Nestle: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2014/01/action-on-sugar-to-the-food-industry-reduce-sugar-now/

Action on Sugar to the food industry: reduce sugar now!

A group of public health experts based mainly in Britain have announced a new anti-sugar campaign.

Called Action on Sugar, it is modeled on Great Britain’s campaign to get the food industry to gradually reduce salt in processed foods—voluntarily. That campaign is considered to have led to a reduction of 25% to 40%.

Action on Sugar’s objective: Reduce sugar in packaged foods by 20% to 30% over the next 3 to 5 years.

Action on Sugar is a group of specialists concerned with sugar and its effects on health. It is successfully working to reach a consensus with the food industry and Government over the harmful effects of a high sugar diet, and bring about a reduction in the amount of sugar in processed foods. Action on Sugar is supported by 18 expert advisors.

As one of the experts put it, “Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are now pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focused on profit not health”—just like the tobacco industry behaves.

You have to love the British press:

New Picture

Source: http://www.actiononsugar.org/

To achieve a reduction in refined added sugar intake in the UK and ensure it does not contribute to more than 5% of total energy intake.

• To reach a consensus with the food manufacturers and suppliers that there is strong evidence that refined added sugar is a major cause of obesity and has other adverse health effects.

• To persuade the food processors and suppliers to universally and gradually reduce the added sugar content of processed foods.

• To ensure clear and comprehensive nutritional labelling of added sugar content of all processed foods and beverages, using the recommended traffic light system.

• To educate the public in becoming more sugar aware in terms of understanding the impact of added sugar on their health, checking labels when shopping and avoiding products with high levels of added sugar.

• To ensure that children are highlighted as a particularly vulnerable group whose health is more at risk from high added sugar intakes.

• To ensure the body of scientific evidence about the dangers of excessive refined added sugar consumption becomes translated into policy by the Government and relevant professional organisations.

• To conduct a Parliamentary campaign to ensure the Government and Department of Health take action, and that, if the food industry do not comply with the sugar targets, they will enact legislation or impose a added sugar tax.

• To work with other organisations and stakeholders in order to maximise the message about what is a healthy diet, ensuring this includes reducing the current national high added sugar intake.

• To work with experts in individual countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and individual ministries of health and other relevant bodies.

complex adaptive systems, cool, file note, meaning, musings, politics

Notes: Antifragile (from flight)

January 11, 2014 blackfriar

Commerce and small business (though not large markets and corporations) are activities and places that bring out the best in people, making most forgiving, honest, loving, trusting and open minded… Like antifragile tinkering, mistakes are small and rapidly forgotten [17].
On errors. In the fragile category, the mistakes are rare and large when they occur, hence irreversible; antifragile mistakes are small and benign, even reversible and quickly overcome. They are also rich in information. So a certain system of tinkering and trial and error would have the attributes of antifragility. If you want to become antifragile, put yourself in the situation of “loves mistakes” [21].

nutrition, policy, politics

Industry walks away from regulation…

January 8, 2014 blackfriar

The food industry play book in action in Scotland…

Scotland abandons responsible food marketing standard

By Caroline Scott-Thomas+, 11-Dec-2013

Related topics: Food safety and labelling, Legislation, Sugar, salt and fat reduction, Marketing

The Scottish government has shelved a standard for responsible food and drink marketing intended to tackle Scotland’s obesity problem, after food industry participants withdrew from discussions.

The government said in April that it would develop a third party certified publically available specification (PAS 2500) on responsible food and drink marketing in partnership with the British Standards Institute (BSI). A Steering Group was set up, consisting mainly of food industry and marketing associations “to give the process credibility and to ensure engagement and industry buy-in.”

However, in a letter addressed to Steering Group members seen by FoodNavigator, the BSI said that although there seemed to be agreement that the project should be attempted, “it was apparent that there was considerable scepticism in respect of the validity of the objectives for the PAS, amongst some sections of the stakeholder community”.

The industry ‘supports balance’

The standard was intended to provide a benchmark for the responsible marketing of food and drink to cut consumption of food high in fat, salt and sugar, but industry trade body, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), says that it did not recognise that current approaches to food promotion already encourage balanced diets.

“By changing product recipes, creating new healthier options, investing in consumer education, providing clear labelling and promoting a wide range of products, the industry supports individuals to find the right balance,”said FDF director of communication Terry Jones.

“The PAS process did not recognise this context. It would restrict the information available to consumers and risk undermining one of Scotland’s most important industries and putting up prices for hard pressed consumers.”

No one from the FDF responded prior to publication to a query about which information would be restricted.

Government ‘could not continue without industry involvement’

The Scottish government said that it was now considering industry responses to draft proposals on other voluntary measures to encourage healthy choices, and aims to publish strategies for marketing and reformulation in April next year.

Referring to the shelved specification, a government spokesperson told this publication: “Unfortunately it could not continue without the food industry’s involvement. However, we welcome the assurance from all parties that they remain committed to constructive engagement on the issue of marketing of HFSS foods.”

Consumer watchdog organisation Which? urged the Scottish government to set out how it is now going to ensure action on more responsible marketing.

“People tell us that responsible marketing is one of the main areas they think Government should address to make it easier for people to eat healthily so it’s disappointing that talks have ended because of the withdrawal of the main industry groups,” a spokesperson said.

facts & data points, healthy habits, nutrition, policy, politics

Future Diets Report