working with for-profit orgs

I cannot stop thinking about this week's reading and lecture! A lot has changed in the 22 years since the Freimuth et al (1988) commentary article was published. I was glad for the history lesson--I had no idea it all began with increasing fiber consumption to reduce cancer risk. It's astonishing to me that the public health entities have embraced partnerships with for-profit companies to get their message out. It's one thing for a PSA to be sponsored by a company and another to merge the message so that it's part of a product. It doesn't sit well with me at all. I was inspired to go through my cabinets and see if I could find any food products with public health organization logos or other health messages on them. None of my food had this sort of labeling, which is interesting because I eat really nutritious, whole foods which maybe should have health messages attached to them. I almost didn't believe it was true since I couldn't find evidence in my own kitchen, but I found this list of American Heart Association's sponsored products. It's overwhelming how many items on the list are highly processed deli meats and frozen dinners! I can accept the frozen fruits/veggies may help contribute to cardiovascular health, but not most of the rest of the items. It's not clear what diet the AHA is trying to promote exactly. With all the meats and the relative paucity of veggies, it sure doesn't seem to be a nutritionally balanced one. I'm surprised too by the inclusion of juices since sweetened beverages are a major source of extra calories. Fruit juice certainly isn't the best source of fruit. I need to do more research on this, but I can't help but tentatively come to the conclusion that the companies are benefiting more from these health messages than the consumers who may be duped. Of course, the jury's still out on this but the salt in all these processed foods may outweigh any benefit of fiber or low fat or whatever criteria these foods met to be considered "heart healthy." Does that feature outweigh all the negatives? Ok, now I'm rambling.

I appreciated hearing the guest lecturer's perspective on health communications marketing. It makes a lot of sense to consider the needs of the media (that is, to generate and hold an audience) when framing your stories and to have authorities on hand with prepared messages when the media does come knocking. The one thing that surprised me was when he said that if you see a story on cancer, he probably had his hands on it or that it was ghost-written. Isn't that the opposite of what happened with the woman who came in a few weeks ago requesting volunteers to write pieces on behalf of her organization? Also, I wonder how this meshes with motivated people operating somewhat outside of the public health infrastructure and promoting awareness or giving advice about healthy living. Here I'm imagining celebrities or survivors speaking from a position of personal experience but lacking a solid understanding of public health recommendations and state of medical knowledge on the issue. Suzanne Sommers on alternative approaches to cancer, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRd3DujnfQU&feature=related

That's it for me this week!

-Melissa