While McDonald’s sells a fat-laden hamburger for a buck and a plump Jason Alexander hawks KFC’s deep-fried popcorn chicken, two industries trying to market reasonably healthful foods are fighting over their promotional messages.
The Produce for Better Health Foundation, which has been running the 5 A Day campaign to prod Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables, objects to a new marketing program by the American Dairy Council called 3-A-Day. The dairy group plans to launch the campaign March 3.
Both campaigns purport to spread good nutrition even as they promote their wares. The 12-year-old 5 A Day program, supported by the government’s National Cancer Institute, argues that eating five servings of fruits and vegetables each day helps prevent cancer and other diseases. The nascent 3-A-Day campaign contends that three helpings of milk, yogurt or cheese supply much of the necessary calcium for strong bones.
Reliable research supports both nutrition messages. At the same time both campaigns also are advertising efforts by big businesses: 5 A Day is financed by produce companies and commodity groups; dairy producers contribute to the 3-A-Day program.
Copy-cat cows?
In the last few months the produce people have accused the dairy industry of copying their program and thus diluting its effect. And the produce boosters say the dairy effort is more about selling products than promoting good eating habits.
Early on, the conflict had been low level, and mostly involved just the two organizations. But PBH spokespeople recently released two letters formally requesting that the National Dairy Council drop 3-A-Day.
One, signed by The American Public Health Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Cancer Institute and nutrition professors Walter Willett of Harvard and Marion Nestle of New York University among others, states that the 3-A-Day program will confuse consumers, that it encourages the consumption of high-fat foods (such as cheese and full-fat dairy products) and that it doesn’t conform to the Department of Agriculture guidelines, which specify two servings of dairy for young children and most adults, and three for teen-agers and people older than 50.
The second letter, from the American Cancer Society, expresses disappointment “that low-fat and fat-free dairy products are not actively promoted” in “what appears to be a simple marketing campaign.” It asks the dairy folks to make appropriate adjustments or drop the 3-A-Day altogether.
A third letter–from the Consumer Federation of America–pleads with the Dairy Council “to adjust your message to stress consumption of low-fat dairy products” and “to consider a name that is at once more distinctive and less likely to confuse consumers.”
Tracy Fox, a registered dietitian who works for PBH, goes further, saying the dairy’s 3-A-Day is nothing but a rip-off of 5 A Day that is trying to use the calcium “health mantra to promote high-fat products, such as cheese, whole milk and regular yogurt.”
Launch day approaches
Meanwhile, on March 3, which is the third month, third day of the two thousandth third year (i.e. 333), the Dairy Council plans to launch the 3-A-Day campaign with the endorsement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians and National Medical Association.
Gregory Miller, senior vice president of nutrition and scientific affairs for the Dairy Council, acknowledges that 3-A-Day operates on the same premise as 5 A Day.
“We didn’t go into it with the idea of imitating,” he says. “We went in based on our own consumer research, which indicated that consumers weren’t really aware of the calcium deficiency out there or that dairy foods are an efficient way to eliminate it.”
Miller said the Dairy Council has explained to the 5 A Day people “that we are not attacking them or trying to overshadow what they have been doing.”
To the PBH accusation that 3-A-Day blurs the line between nutrition education and marketing, Miller says, “We have always been up front in saying that this is a milk marketing campaign. But it is not purely a marketing tool. It also has an important educational component.
“The 5 A Day program acts as if it is a purely public health campaign, but it also is privately funded by the fruit and produce industry.”
It is true, Miller says, that cheese is promoted in the 3-A-Day advertisements, which don’t necessarily emphasize low-fat dairy products.
“But the No. 1 reason people select a food is taste, and people like the taste of cheese, which delivers a lot of calcium,” he says. “You don’t get very far by telling people what not to eat.”
He adds that there are plans to “be more aggressive in delivering the nutrition messages, and lower-fat is part of that.”
Staying out of it
Not everyone in the nutrition community is eager to take up sides in this controversy.
“What’s the real harm here?” asks Kathleen Zelman, a nutrition consultant and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “Weight control and osteoporosis are epidemic issues.
“5 A Day has been a success, so I can understand why the dairy industry would try to imitate it. But there is so much compelling research and evidence that by consuming more calcium and protein from dairy products, especially the lower-fat products, that you can prevent osteoporosis and achieve more efficient weight loss.
“I don’t think the dairy industry is trying to advocate high fat,” Zelman says. “I don’t think they care what kind of dairy products you consume.”
(Most recipes on the 3-A-Day Web site, www.3aday.org, call for low- or reduced-fat products.)
“If a jazzy campaign helps get people to eat better and consume more calcium, especially young girls and women, then I say, `bravo,’ ” says registered dietitian Darlene Lansing, a Minnesota nutrition educator who has not been associated with either the dairy or the produce industry. “I am hard-pressed to distinguish the value of the two campaigns on the basis that one is a public health campaign and the other simply a marketing campaign.”
Judi Adams, a dietitian who is president of the Wheat Foods Council, says she envies the milk industry’s support for 3-A-Day. For several years her group wanted to launch a similar “Three are Key” nutritional campaign for wheat foods, she says, “but we haven’t had the necessary dollars.”
“How does the infighting among commodity groups serve the consumer? It doesn’t,” Adams says. “It just makes all of us look foolish and petty and reinforces what the consumer already thinks about nutrition advice: that it changes weekly and it’s politically motivated.”
