Two weeks ago, I wrote about how the junk food industry undermined first lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve children's nutrition. Initially, her focus was really honed in on organic gardening, eating real food and protecting children from harmful food ingredients, including excessive amounts of sugar.

She was right on target, poised to become a formidable force for children's health — until Big Food stepped in and started pulling political strings.

Food industry pressure completely altered the first lady's plan to tackle childhood obesity through healthier food, shifting the focus to exercise and the importance of "energy balance" instead — a strategy based on fake industry-funded science promoted by industry front groups and their paid academics.

A Page From the Junk Food Industry's Playbook

For example, Coca-Cola Company alone paid $2.1 million directly to health experts, mostly dietitians and academics, during one five-year span. It spent another $21.8 million on pro-industry research, and $96.8 million to various health organizations.

The reason for all this generosity? To influence public health recommendations related to consumption of sugary beverages and other junk food. As noted by Kyle Pfister in his 2015 article on Medium.com:¹

"I wanted to dig deeper into this network of influencers to learn more about the strategy. Why were they chosen? What do they have in common? …

I was able to find 63 percent are active on social media — and as a group they have over 180,000 followers on Twitter and 150,000 likes on Facebook. That doesn't include the organizations they work for, just their individual accounts …

[U]pon deeper inspection, many are effective communicators whose influence reaches deep into our culture. That's the whole point …

Many of the dietitians seem to be members of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics recruited around the campaign to promote the new mini Coke cans as a healthy snack."

Moreover, it's quite clear that any commitment the soda and junk food industry has to lower calories is simply a ploy to expand the use of artificial sweeteners, which are fraudulently advertised as a diet and diabetes aid since they actually impair your ability to lose weight and manage your diabetes.^2,3

Big Food Now Has a Damage Control Expert Inside the Organic Community

On October 5, a couple of weeks before my article about Mrs. Obama came out, Michael Pollan published a damning article in The New York Times about the Obamas' failure to take on corporate agriculture.⁴

In it, Pollan mentions Scott Faber, who in 2010 — when Mrs. Obama implored the food industry to clean up its act to protect children's health — was the chief lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

In a shocking twist, Faber was hired by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to represent the organic industry during closed doors negotiations with Congress to undermine the GMO labeling effort.⁵

In an apparent effort at damage control following Pollan's piece, Faber wrote an article published by the EWG on October 17, in which he lists 10 "Obama food policy wins."⁶

On this list, he includes improving food safety, clearer food labels, banning trans fat, expanding access to healthy food through new programs, healthier school lunches and creating voluntary sodium restriction guidelines for food makers, among others.

"In particular, first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign encouraged all Americans — especially our children — to make healthier food choices. Although we have a long way to go, evidence⁷ shows that American eating habits have gotten better since Mrs. Obama launched the initiative in 2010."