A debate in NYC over soda policy

Heritage Radio Network has posted in full a debate Thursday night about the NYC soda policy proposals.

The debate had four participants:

• I spoke gently in favor of New York City's effort to experiment with moderate policies to change the environment in which sugar sweetened beverages are marketed and sold.  I suggested that the Board of Health's proposed limit on sweetened beverage container sizes was not as radical as it has been portrayed. My 2-minute opening statement begins at 17:25.
• Lisa Young, an author and adjunct professor at New York University, spoke strongly in favor of the proposal, using cups of various sizes as props to buttress her points.
• J. Justin Wilson trashed the proposal on libertarian and free-market grounds.  Wilson represents the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry-funded organization that runs ads calling NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg a nutrition nanny.
• Joel Berg directs the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.  He appealed strongly for broader policies to address U.S. poverty and expressed his organization's intention to neither endorse nor oppose the beverage size limitation proposal.  Then, Berg livened the debate by launching into an enjoyably vivid and highly critical analysis of such paternalistic policies.

The event was organized by the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD) and hosted by the New York City Food Policy Center at Hunter College.

Coca-Cola's "Cap the Tap" campaign

The MyPlate consumer education materials (.pdf) from the U.S. government wisely encourage folks to "drink water instead of sugary beverages."

The message from beverage companies is something else altogether.

Through its "Cap the Tap" campaign and related materials, Coca-Cola encourages restaurants to talk customers out of choosing tap water and instead to choose higher-profit items such as Coke, Minute Maid juice, Dasani bottled water, or an alcoholic drink. I read about this campaign recently in a hard-hitting post by Andy Bellatti at Civil Eats. A related link to Coca-Cola's CokeSolutions website appears to be broken now, but I found you can still read about the company's message for restaurants on Google Cache. [Note 11/18/2013: the basic link to CokeSolutions is working.  Bellatti points out by Twitter that the "Cap the Tap" graphic from that site is only available now in a Huffington Post screenshot.  Nice work.]

Bellatti also linked to this great, blunt, fascinating page by graphic designer Pen Williamson, with proposed posters that Coca-Cola could use to get restaurants to discourage healthy and inexpensive tap water as a beverage choice [Note: this sentence edited slightly Nov 15 afternoon]. The poster suggests, "provide tap water to guests upon request only."  I don't know if this poster or another similar poster was used in Coca-Cola's "Cap the Tap" campaign.

There is nothing the government can or should do to restrict this type of marketing to restaurants. Yet, I think it is terrible marketing from a nutrition standpoint, which gives us useful context as we interpret the public policy debate over the potential role of beverage companies as part of the solution to the nation's health and nutrition challenges.

Wine industry visualizations

The food industry visualizations of Michigan State University professor Phil Howard focus on relationships among businesses or sectors within the food system.

It is interesting how visualizations can carry different implicit messages even when they seem at first to address the same topic.

For example, the first of Howard's recent (December 2012) interactive visualizations of wine industry brands emphasizes the great diversity of options in the marketplace ...


... while the second of these visualizations emphasizes the comparatively heavy concentration at the corporate level.


For more about the food system more generally, see Howard's 2012 working paper with Harvey James Jr. and Mary Hendrickson. More to come on this topic of food system visualizations.

Colbert covers the VitaminWater lawsuit

In food advertising and labeling law, there is a concept called "puffery." It means advertising or labeling claims so outlandish that reasonable adults will recognize their falsehood.

You might think that health advocacy groups would use the word "puffery" as an insult when describing food company advertising. Not so.

Instead, it is the food companies who use the word "puffery" in legal briefs defending their own advertising. As in: "Sure, our advertising claim was false, but so what? Our claim was mere 'puffery.' We have no legal obligation to stand by its truth." I thought of this arcane field of puffery-related law while watching Colbert's coverage of the Coca-Cola VitaminWater lawsuit this week.

The Colbert Report
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Are Taubes and Couzens too hard on the Dietary Guidelines?

Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens have a remarkable expose in Mother Jones of the sugar industry's misleading public information efforts over several decades.  The feature article stands out for its effective use of previously overlooked archival materials.  The indictment of sugar industry influence on policy advice and nutrition science research is devastating.

Everybody interested in U.S. food policy should read this story.

I do have one substantial complaint.  As in previous work by Taubes, this article does well in describing sugar industry public information campaigns, but it unfairly characterizes the recent editions of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

One of the best things about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, for example, is that any reader can see the systematic evidence reviews -- published free on the internet -- that form the basis for the document's conclusions.

Here is what Taubes and Couzens say about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines:

The authors of the 2010 USDA dietary guidelines, for instance, cited two scientific reviews as evidence that sugary drinks don't make adults fat. The first was written by Sigrid Gibson, a nutrition consultant whose clients included the Sugar Bureau (England's version of the Sugar Association) and the World Sugar Research Organization (formerly the ISRF). The second review was authored by Carrie Ruxton, who served as research manager of the Sugar Bureau from 1995 to 2000.

But following the first link in the preceding paragraph, the federal government's evidence review says exactly the opposite of what Taubes and Couzens claim:

Conclusion.  A moderate body of epidemiologic evidence suggests that greater consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with increased body weight in adults.

Taubes and Couzens say USDA cited "two scientific reviews," but anybody following the link can see that USDA cited four reviews.  The review that USDA gives most weight was not mentioned by Taubes and Couzens, and it endorses the warnings against sugary drinks.

The whole advantage of systematic evidence reviews is to avoid cherry-picking evidence that favors one's own argument.  I think it would be great for science journalists to adopt the same practice of specifying a selection protocol in advance, just as the federal government's evidence reviews do, so that the journalists are not tempted to report only evidence that corroborates their thesis.

As this blog noted recently, the MyPlate guidance is accompanied by well-crafted terse advice about sugary drinks:

Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Taubes and Couzens seem right on target in their criticism of the Sugar Association but quite unfair to the federal government and recent editions of the Dietary Guidelines.  (The authors' criticism of earlier editions may be more justified.)  Part of the reason I accept the main thrust of Taubes' critique of sugar-sweetened beverages is that -- despite his tone -- this particular aspect of Taubes' work seems fairly consistent with the sober judgement of mainstream dietary guidance in 2010.

Rudd report on soft drink taxes

The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has a very timely report on soft drink taxes (.pdf).

An engaging section at the end offers point-by-point contrasts between what "opponents" and "proponents" say about soft drink taxes. Here are some examples and my comments on them.

Opponents say:
Soft drink taxes are regressive. They will disproportionately hurt the poor and minorities who spend a larger proportion of their income on food.

Proponents say:
Soft drink taxes have the potential to be most beneficial to low-income people, who:
-- may currently consume more soft drinks;
-- may be more sensitive to higher prices and therefore stand to benefit most from reducing consumption.

This is especially true if the revenues are used for programs that
will benefit the poor, or for subsidies on healthier foods which can
offset concerns that the tax is regressive.

While everyone must eat, sugared beverages are not a necessary
part of the diet and generally deliver many calories with little or no
nutrition.

To make the proponents' point even more broadly, it is good public policy to expect the tax system as a whole to be progressive, but it would be bad policy to expect every disaggregated sales tax to be progressive.

Opponents say:
The government should stay out of private behavior. It should not try to regulate what people eat or drink.

Proponents say:
The government is already deeply involved in what we eat, from farm subsidies to setting nutritional standards for school meals. Historically, major government interventions have been successful in improving and protecting the public’s health. Examples include smoking restrictions and tobacco taxes, mandated seat belt usage, fluoridated water, and vaccinations.

It is true that government interventions can promote the public interest. However, on this question about personal food and beverage choices, I'd encourage the proponents to listen very carefully to the opponents' concern. The proponents should spend more ink calling for reforms to misdirected government policies (such as subsidies for inputs to corn sweeteners) than calling for taxes to change public behavior. Public policy to address obesity wins more public agreement when the public strongly senses a heartfelt deference to consumers' own preferences.

Here is a rhetorical argument that proponents can pursue in states where sales taxes are lower for groceries than for other goods: "Soft drinks should be taxed fairly, just like all other consumer goods subject to sales tax. Soft drinks should not be taxed using the special lower tax rate for food necessities. This policy reform does not tell consumers what to do. It merely puts soft drinks in the appropriate category of goods subject to sales tax." In such states, proponents should never get caught in a sound bite that makes them seem more eager to direct consumer choices.

Opponents say:
Soft drink taxes can’t be compared to cigarette and alcohol taxes. The use of tobacco and alcohol can have adverse consequences for non-users (for example, second hand smoke, and drunk driving accidents, called “negative externalities”). This is not true for soft drink consumption.

Proponents say:
Obesity also has negative externalities which affect us all. Among them are significant overall health care costs, including higher medical, disability, and insurance premium costs. For example, obesity-related medical expenditures were estimated in 2002 to be $92 billion, half of which were paid for with taxpayer dollars through Medicaid and Medicare.

The proponents, here, have chosen an argument that may be too broad to win public agreement. By the same argument about shared insurance risk pools, one could justify fairly severe government interventions to influence personal choices that affect health. Contrast this argument with the much stronger public appeal of policies to protect children from soft drink sales and marketing in schools.

At the end of the day, I'd support much stronger public policies to address soft drink consumption and obesity, but the proponents' arguments in this report could be strengthened with some pruning.