The many (many) corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Assn.
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Check out the Fooducate blog for a post about all the food and beverage companies that sponsor the American Dietetic Assn.
Included in the entry are photographs taken at the ADA’s annual meeting in October of a blizzard of familiar companies, on a board identifying them as corporate sponsors and thanking them. Among the sponsors: the Coca-Cola Co., the National Dairy Council, Kellogg’s, Mars, Aramark, Pepsico.
Hemi Weingarten, who writes Fooducate, notes that one day earlier (April 21) the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, which has more than 650,000 physician members, had adopted a new ethics code aimed at limiting influence of drug companies.
‘What can the American Dietetic Association learn from this?’ Weingarten writes. ‘How about refusing sponsorships from food companies?’
Weingarten continues: ‘At least the pharma companies are creating medicines that improve or save lives. Can junk food companies claim the same? Can beverage companies? That’s why Coca-Cola, Mars, and other purveyors of childhood obesity (and grownup obesity) have no place sponsoring any ADA activity.’
The ADA has been criticized before for having an overly cozy relationship with industry.
Here, for example, is what NYU nutrition professor Marion Nestle had to say about it in 2008: ‘Respected ADA colleagues: as long as your organization partners with makers of food and beverage products, its opinions about diet and health will never be believed independent.’
Here’s what the ADA says on its website about corporate funding:
The Association’s sponsorship program works with industry to include Registered Dietitians in the dialogue, to share science-based information and new research with ADA members and to enable ADA’s healthy-eating message to reach millions more consumers than ADA otherwise could.
However, it says other things, such as:
For companies and organizations interested in connecting with ADA members, ADA’s Corporate Relations Sponsorship program and other promotional opportunities may help you reach influential and dynamic food and nutrition professionals. 61% of members reported being ‘more likely to consider’ recommending an organization or brand that is an ADA Partner or Premier Sponsor.
--Rosie Mestel