Child health advocates are losing the food-fight because they face an exceptionally large amount of special interest money. While it’s pretty obvious that more vegetables and less sugar at lunch would be a good thing for kids at school, we’ve recently seen Congress declare pizza a vegetable and kill a plan to reduce sugar, salt, and fat in foods marketed to children.
As Reuters tells us in a recent special report on childhood obesity and lobbying, 50 different food and beverage groups have spent $175 million lobbying on childhood nutritional standards since Obama took office — more than double the $83 million spent during the Bush Administration’s last three years.
As this infographic shows, it’s evident that money in politics has everything to do with government’s failure to help protect our kids’ health — when they need money to run their campaign for the next election, they can’t effectively regulate the industries who donate to them.
Comments