"Health" Advisory Boards

One way fast food giants try to distract from the health impacts of their products, and demonstrate that they don’t need to be regulated, is to hire in-house advisory panels of nutrition scientists and physicians. The logic?  Maybe it will make moms and dads feel better about their products when they learn that Burger King has the Chair of Pediatrics for Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital on their nutrition panel.[1]

These in-house councils exist so that fast food corporations can claim to be part of the solution to our nationwide epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases. Yet, they don’t seem to be on board with any solution that puts a crimp in their profits. While supporting the idea that children should get more physical education, they seem to reject expert advice to limit portion sizes, limit fat, sugar and salt in their products, or limit marketing to children. In other words, they’ll offer whatever advice they can without taking responsibility for the harm of their products. The large, often undisclosed stipends for the experts they hire may serve to keep those researchers from criticizing the process.

But some scientists are speaking out against these advisory boards. Dr. George L. Blackburn, director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine at Harvard Medical School, stepped down from McDonald’s advisory board in 2005. He complained that the corporation wouldn’t seriously consider implementing his advice to cut calories and make food more healthful. As New York University nutrition professor and author Marion Nestle said in a 2005 New York Times article, "[t]hese companies can say we have all these really important people who care about health working with us, and that takes some of the heat off…but all they're doing is making junk food marginally healthier."[2]

1. Company Info, “Burger King Corp. Announces Nutrition Advisory Panel” (July 10, 2007), Burger King Brands, Inc.   http://www.bk.com/companyinfo//news/cbbb.aspx (accessed August 27, 2008).

2. Melanie Warner, “Is a Trip to McDonald's Just What the Doctor Ordered?” The New York Times, May 2, 2005.  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/business/02doctor.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position (accessed December 7, 2008).