The full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers were inspired by new government data questioning government assertions that obesity causes nearly as many deaths as smoking, according to the Center for Consumer Freedom, which paid for the ads.
The group, based in Washington, does not disclose names of its donors, though spokesman Mike Burita said casual dining restaurant chains "are predominant sources of funding for us."
The group spent about $600,000 on the ads, which appeared on Monday in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune. Ads are also to run in Newsweek magazine and on billboards in the Washington-area metro system.
The campaign, Burita said, was sparked by new statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a unit of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), that contradict previous findings from the CDC that obesity was catching up to heart disease as a major cause of death in the United States.
The CDC has said that smoking kills 435,000 Americans a year and that obesity kills close to 400,000 annually. But the NCHS report issued last week cuts that number by 75 percent.
Since it was published last year, the CDC's 400,000 figure has been cited in media reports regarding the impact of obesity on everything from healthcare costs to diets.
"We're putting pressure on the leadership of the CDC, who has still not endorsed this new figure," Burita said.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner, who said he has seen the ad, said the CDC was not wrong a year ago.
"All the science around computing mortality associated with obesity is still evolving. If you look at the papers and try to compare them, you really can't do that," Skinner said.
He said it was more important to look at obesity-associated illness and disability. "It is a well-known fact that obesity is also contributing to other well-known leading causes of death including cancer and diabetes," Skinner said.
Courtesy of Reuters 4/26/2005
Steve - Just when you think you have heard everything! The CDC actually does something right in emphasizing the grave consequences of a nation that is between 40-60% obese, and now the large restaurant chains are berating them because of one flawed statistical discovery.
The large restaurant chains have been getting off scot-free because they do not have to list nutritional information in their menus. The food is loaded with trans fats, refined grains, added sugars, and artificial ingredients, unbeknownst to the customer.
Due to the recent acknowledgement that obesity kills, not to mention contributing to a multitude of diseases and chronic conditions, public and legislative pressure has been put on the restaurant chains to create healthier options, but more importantly, disclose nutritional facts in their menus. This disclosure would be disaster for them and they know it. If consumers discovered how horrific the menus really are, the restaurant chains would be hard-pressed to recover.
This is a desparate move from a group who are used to flying under the radar, and now that the heat is on. They are grasping for any piece of data that can help their cause. Let's hypothetically say that obesity does NOT cause 75% of the deaths that smoking does (which we know it does), we are still looking at almost 100,000 deaths per year. This does not include the serious debilitating disease and chronic issues to which obesity also contributes.
Let's as citizens call the restaurant lobby's bluff...contact your local senators and congressmen/women and ask them to require restaurants to disclose all nutritional information and ingredients in their menus.
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