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| Health advocate Michele Simon will discuss the link between food companies and child obesity at a Tulane lecture. |
Policy change at the local, state and federal levels may be what it takes to help parents counter the influence of food marketing on their children's health, says Michele Simon, director of the Center for Informed Food Choices, who will speak at Tulane on April 10.
Simon, a public health lawyer, will present her research and analysis in a lecture titled "The Politics of Childhood Obesity: How Food Companies Target Kids and Undermine Nutrition Policy" on Monday, April 10, from noon until 1 p.m. in room 1201 of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at 1440 Canal St.
Simon's visit is sponsored by the Prevention Research Center at Tulane.
"The center's theme is the impact of the physical and social environment on obesity," says professor Tom Farley, center director and chair of community health sciences. "The most important aspect of that environment is the availability of different types of food. Changing food availability involves politics and involves some degree of confrontation with the food industry. People who go to the talk will have a better understanding of how the food industry operates so that health advocates can better understand how to focus their energies."
In the spring of 2005, Farley was advocating a bill proposed by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to ban soda machines from school grounds when he learned of Simon's work monitoring similar legislation in all states. He reached out to Simon for her perspective. Ultimately, a revised bill passed, but as a result of pressure from Coca-Cola lobbyists, the legislature watered down the bill and soda machines are still in schools today, says Farley.
Simon, who is writing a book about food industry influence on nutrition policy, says the Louisiana experience is not unusual.
"Louisiana, like many other states, tried to do the right thing and couldn't, thanks to lobbying by the soft drink industry," says Simon. "Almost every state has tried to pass legislation to get sodas out of schools, recognizing that we have a public health crisis on our hands. Of all places, schools should be a safe haven for children and not an opportunity to market unhealthy products to a captive audience."
According to Simon, the national debate about children's nutrition is often framed as a matter of personal and parental responsibility.
"Parents are doing the best they can, but corporations are interfering with their ability to raise healthy children," says Simon. "We need to help parents find ways that government can reign in corporate behavior so that parents are not in such a bind. We shouldn't be undermining parents' best intentions."
Children are at the focal point of the growing national debate concerning obesity. For the first time in history, adult diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and early heart disease are evident in young people.
"People are starting to ask how did this happen, what's going on," says Simon, who has degrees in law and public health. Her own struggle with weight led her to rethink her diet (she is now a vegetarian) and to look more closely at the political and economic structures that shape our food choices. "We know the food industry plays a critical role in targeting children; in addition, allowing soda in schools is ultimately a policy decision."
Simon will discuss the way in which schools are taken advantage of by the food and beverage companies to market to children, as well as how media and technology give marketers almost unrestricted access to children, and how to fight back.
