Obesity fuels their fervor
Washington — To their critics, they are known as the food police. That's the polite term. Other sobriquets include "the cookie cops," "the grease Gestapo" and, given the times, "the vegetarian Taliban."
But the academics, scientists and consumer activists who have targeted the evils of unhealthy foods for decades are used to the name-calling. With American obesity a growing health hazard -- two-thirds of adults, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are now overweight -- the food crusaders are energized. Where once their ideas seemed far-fetched, they now believe they are knocking on the door of the mainstream.
Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychologist, suggested in 1994 that Americans should get more exercise, that schools should get rid of soft drinks and vending machine snacks and that government should subsidize healthy foods like fruits and vegetables by taxing undesirable ones. This was promptly dubbed the Twinkie Tax by the media, and Brownell's life has never been the same.
"The tax idea became a lightning rod," he said, recalling the epithets from conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. Now, he thinks, "we're reaching the tipping point" in food politics.
John Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University, agreed. With a 30-year record of suing tobacco companies, Banzhaf now is plying that expertise to the cause of blaming the food industry for America's expanding waistlines. "This is the way movements start," he said. At first, "Brown vs. Board of Education seemed to many a frivolous case," he said of the landmark lawsuit that launched efforts to end racial segregation in public schools, "but it helped bring on the civil rights movement."
Not everyone is convinced that the food crusaders have the answer to excess poundage. At the American Council on Science and Health, a New York-based consumer education consortium, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and her colleagues favor "variety, balance and moderation" in eating. "Twinkies and milk after school is not a crime when it is a snack in an otherwise balanced diet," she said. "But food has become very mystical. Everybody who eats three times a day thinks they are an expert."
The food industry has responded to the food crusaders by setting up its own Washington, D.C.-based organization -- the Center for Consumer Freedom -- dedicated to exposing what it says are their distortions.
