We’ve been hearing more about “elite capture” lately, where foreign individuals / multinationals exert influence/compromise elites from a specific country so that they can benefit in some way from that country – in other words, they “capture the influence” of elites so that they can benefit in some way, i.e. impact a government’s policy so that their business interests will benefit – power and money.
It now appears that the corporations are playing the same game with the field of nutrition. This article outlines how commodity corporations are influencing the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) to promote their agenda at the expense of the AND’s stated mission of improving global health.
Published online by Cambridge University Press:
The rising global burden of non-communicable diseases has for decades been addressed by downstream efforts that focus on improving individual behaviours(Reference Coggon and Adams1). However, recently upstream efforts focused on societal and environmental changes have led to important population-level approaches and policies implemented in several countries to improve non-communicable diseases, including obesity and diabetes(2,3) . An important barrier to these approaches is the commercial determinants of health(Reference de Lacy-Vawdon and Livingstone4,Reference Tangcharoensathien, Chandrasiri and Kunpeuk5) . These are actions, processes and ways in which commercial actors such as unhealthy commodity corporations (tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink) influence health policy making and, in general, influence the environment to protect their interests(Reference Maani, McKee and Petticrew6).
There is extensive literature that shows how unhealthy commodity corporations are involved in setting health policy and research agendas globally(Reference Freudenberg7,Reference Hawkins and Holden8) . In particular, they use instrumental (action-based) and discursive (argument-based) strategies to influence science and policy surrounding public health efforts to protect well-being and healthy environments(Reference Maani, McKee and Petticrew6,Reference Mialon, Swinburn and Wate9) . Furthermore, corporations lobby and litigate against health policies and capture science by recruiting and hiring scientists to influence public discourse and position corporate interests in the public agenda(Reference Hawkins and Holden8,Reference Waa, Hoek and Edwards10,Reference Nixon, Mejia and Cheyne11) . One key strategy is to capture health professionals and health institutions as a vehicle to achieve its interests more broadly in the global health agenda.
In the USA, one of the most important professional health associations is the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND)(Reference Nestle12–Reference Nestle14). The AND’s relationship with the food and beverage industry has been described elsewhere(Reference Storm15,Reference Simon16) . Founded in 1917 as the American Dietetic Association, the AND is the largest US-based organisation comprised of food and nutritional professionals, with approximately 100 000 dietitians and nutrition practitioners and students(Reference Right17). It is established as a 501(c)(6) trade association and certifies dieticians and nutrition practitioners in the USA and abroad(Reference Right17,18) . The AND’s stated mission is ‘to accelerate improvements in global health and well-being through food and nutrition’. AND acts as a reference for dietetics curricula accreditation and as an authority in US food policy making(19). For instance, the Academy has been influential in the process of setting US Dietary Guidelines, which are then taken into consideration all over the world in order to develop vital nutrition policy decisions … Read full article
