An interview with Marion Nestle, a food policy guru
To say that Marion Nestle is simply a professor at New York University would be a tremendous understatement. When it comes to food policy and public health advocacy, Dr. Nestle is a guru.
She fearlessly and relentlessly pushes food companies and policy makers to think and care about the consumer.
Here are her thoughts about food and her new book, “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning),” (Oxford University Press, 2015)
DD: What drove you to become a foodie and food policy advocate?
Nestle: I’ve always loved to eat! I grew up in New York City at a time when food was scarce and anything but fresh.
When I was 8, my parents sent me to a small summer camp in southern Vermont run by a woman who had lived in China for many years and was a fabulous cook. The camp had a large vegetable garden, and if you were a good camper you were chosen to pick the vegetables for dinner.
I went out to pick string beans and tasted one. The bean was warm, crisp, sweet and wonderfully flavorful. I had no idea that was what beans were supposed to taste like. I’ve never looked back. …
In the early 1990s I attended a meeting of the National Cancer Institute where anti-smoking advocates gave talks on how cigarettes were marketed to adults and children. I thought, we nutritionists ought to be giving talks like that. I was tired of going to meetings on childhood obesity where everyone blamed parents and nobody talked about the role of food marketing. That’s what started it.
DD: Should we really be so worried about the foods we eat?
Nestle: I wish everyone could just relax, eat reasonably, enjoy what they eat, and not worry so much, but it’s hard to do that in today’s hugely competitive food marketing environment.
In this country we have twice as much food as the population needs, and companies have to sell what they produce. They fight for market share. So we are bombarded by advertising, much of it designed not to be noticed as such.
For example, food companies have discovered that larger portions sell well but don’t cost much. If I could convey one concept to everyone, it’s that larger portions have more calories. This may seem obvious, but it’s not. I think larger portions are a sufficient reason why we all have so much trouble maintaining weight.
DD: You’ve drawn comparisons between big soda and big tobacco. How are they similar? And different?
Nestle: Sodas are not cigarettes, but both industries market unhealthy products, especially to children, minorities and people in developing countries. They use the same playbook to deflect attention from the harm.
Both use front groups, lobby, fund community organizations and researchers, and do everything they can to head off public health initiatives or regulations.
In some ways, soda is a more complicated target of public health advocacy. With cigarettes it’s one message — don’t smoke — and one goal: put those companies out of business.
For sodas, the “drink less” message is more complicated and the goal is to get the companies to stop some of their current practices, make healthier products, and sell smaller portions — which some of them are trying to do.
DD: Why has the effort to regulate the food industry’s marketing of unhealthy products toward children been so ineffective? I’d think this would be an easy compromise for “big food.”
Nestle: Are you kidding? It’s the food industry’s line in the sand. They have to market to kids to sell products. Every federal attempt to regulate marketing to kids, even those that just set voluntary standards, has been blown out of the water by food industry opposition.
