An article entitled “Fat and Happy” appeared in Citizens for Health Newsletter.

The US Health and Human Services and the food industry are fighting WHO (World Health Organization) efforts to curtail the worldwide obesity epidemic. The special interests of the food industry have taken precedence over consumers’ health worldwide.

“When the WHO issued a report last spring recommending strategies for chronic disease and obesity prevention, including limits on sugar, salt and fat consumption and restricting junk food advertising aimed at kids, health advocates expected the world leader in obesity to applaud. Instead, standing hand-in-hand with the Grocery Manufacturer’s of America (GMA) and Sugar Association, producers of high-fat, high-calorie junk food and soda, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, demanded that WHO postpone, weaken or completely withdraw the anti-obesity recommendations.”

“The negative comments have not come from scientists. They have come only from industry,” said Kaare R. Norum of the Institute for Nutrition Research at the University of Oslo, chairman of the scientific panel that advised the WHO. “It’s ridiculous to say that the report is not valid”.

Ridiculous indeed. Obesity is a serious worldwide health problem and our government is rallying behind the food industry. Pathetic.

Source: “Fat and Happy” in the Jan. 30, 2004 issue of Citizens for Health Newsletter.