{"id":828518,"date":"2025-02-20T13:12:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T19:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/it-is-time-to-hold-the-food-industry-to-account-for-its-role-in-the-declining-health-of-americans\/"},"modified":"2025-02-20T13:12:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T19:12:55","slug":"it-is-time-to-hold-the-food-industry-to-account-for-its-role-in-the-declining-health-of-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/it-is-time-to-hold-the-food-industry-to-account-for-its-role-in-the-declining-health-of-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"It is time to hold the food industry to account for its role in the declining health of Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u2014 OPINION \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Ron Erickson<\/p>\n

Recently, I visited the immense breakfast cereal aisle at my local supermarket.\u00a0 I was curious to learn from the labels of cereals marketed to children the daily value of the sugar in a single serving.\u00a0Fifty years ago, as a young attorney and policy wonk, I worked with Robert B. Choate and the organization he founded, the Council on Children, Media and Merchandising, on trying to limit the advertising of sugar-coated breakfast cereals on Saturday morning children\u2019s television programs.\u00a0More recently, I am the founder and CEO of a Seattle based company developing non-invasive diagnostic technology with a first focus on determining blood glucose levels.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Diabetes is near pandemic on a global basis.\u00a0More than 11 percent<\/a> of the U.S. population suffers from the disease and in some countries, the incidence rate of diabetes can exceed 30 percent<\/a>. It is generally agreed that Type 2 diabetes has an association with obesity, which is rampant.\u00a0 Over 40 percent <\/a>of Americans are regarded as obese.\u00a0 When it comes to health and wellness in America, we rarely look at the root cause of disease but rather focus on treatment after diagnosis.\u00a0 Obesity is a classic example as we witness the excitement over GLP-1 remedies for obesity.<\/p>\n

This morning, Tony the Tiger was delivering 24 percent of daily value of sugar<\/a> in a single serving.\u00a0 Captain Crunch was 33 percent and Honey Smacks was 36 percent. Breakfast cereals are not the only culprit.\u00a0Sugar, and added sugar, are components of many processed foods found in the center of supermarkets.\u00a0 I began to pay attention to the sugar content and added sugar in these foods in the past three years as my wife has been treated for breast cancer.\u00a0I became responsible for shopping and preparing food, with the wonderful assistance of family and friends.\u00a0 As a part of my wife\u2019s treatment, she chose to eat a Keto diet and dramatically limit her intake of carbohydrates and sugar, believing that there is evidence that cancer cells consume and thrive on sugar more than normal cells.<\/p>\n

Fifty years have passed but not much has changed.\u00a0 In fact, the incidence of obesity and diabetes, and for that matter, cancer, has increased.\u00a0Processed foods, including breakfast cereals marketed to children, contain significant amounts of sugar.\u00a0What is the impact on society of that fact? What is the responsibility of large, processed food manufacturers?\u00a0Are they aware of the near addictive nature of their products and the impact on the health and wellness of their consumers?\u00a0Do they bear some responsibility for the growing problems of obesity and diabetes?<\/p>\n

In my view there is no difference between Joe Camel and Tony the Tiger.\u00a0The tobacco industry knew for decades that their products were marketed to young people and would have addictive long term impacts.\u00a0Is what I call the \u201cIndustrial Food Complex\u201d any different?\u00a0 We will begin to see litigation like that which brought the tobacco industry to heal.\u00a0 One of the first was just filed<\/a> in Pennsylvania. It accuses major food companies of marketing \u201caddictive\u201d food to kids.\u00a0There will be more to come.\u00a0The \u201cIndustrial Food Complex\u201d bears significant responsibility for obesity and the diseases that flow from that condition.\u00a0It is time to call them to account.<\/p>\n

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, <\/em><\/strong>click here.<\/em><\/strong><\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Guest Contributor
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014 OPINION \u2014 By Ron Erickson Recently, I visited the immense breakfast cereal aisle at my local supermarket.\u00a0 I was curious to learn from the labels of cereals marketed to children the daily value of the sugar in a single serving.\u00a0Fifty years ago, as a young attorney and policy wonk, I worked with Robert B.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":828519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24085,648],"tags":[6013,7377],"class_list":{"0":"post-828518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-account","8":"category-industry","9":"tag-account","10":"tag-industry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}