A new program headed by the dean of Tufts' nutrition school that grades the health value of food products has drawn severe criticism for its ties to members of the food industry and for endorsing what many experts call unhealthy eating choices.
Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy Dean Eileen Kennedy leads the Smart Choices program, which denotes approved foods with a green checkmark which appears on the foods' packages.
Criticism of the program has focused on its inclusion of a number of popular, sugary cereals, like Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops.
Michael Jacobson, who was originally on the panel that established Smart Choices' criteria, quit during the formulation process, after what he called excessive involvement from food industry representatives.
"It was paid for by industry and when industry put down its foot and said this is what we're doing, that was it, end of story," he told the New York Times in early September.
Other critics have railed against the food industry's direct involvement in the program. The program has nine board members, including one industry representative each from Kellogg's, General Mills, Kraft Foods and Unilever.
Kennedy responded that the academics on the board had as much say as industry representatives.
"All I can say is there are some mighty opinionated academics and health organizations that had equally strong points of view," she told the Daily. "No one was a cream puff in these debates."
The Smart Choices Program was launched in early August by the Keystone Center, a non-profit organization that facilitates discussion about prominent social, environmental and health issues.
Kennedy serves as president of the Smart Choices Board of Directors. "Ultimately, we're hoping we improve public health by [promoting] a better diet," Kennedy said.
But Mike Adams, editor of the online Natural News Network, has called the Smart Choices program a "marketing fraud."
"You'd have to be deeply misinformed about nutritional basics to think that a processed breakfast cereal made of 41% sugar, partially-hydrogenated oils and artificial coloring chemicals is a ‘smart choice' for any child," Adams wrote in a Sept. 22 article for the Natural News Network, a non-profit information source that draws on Web sites covering health and environmental issues.
"A more appropriate label might be ‘Diabetes Choices' or ‘Obesity Choices,' but certainly not ‘Smart Choices,'" Adams wrote. His office declined to comment for this article.
Tufts has requested that Smart Choices not list Kennedy's academic title as dean of the Friedman School on the program's Web site, Christine Fennelly, Tufts' director of public relations for the health sciences campuses, said in an e-mail to the Daily.
Kennedy works pro-bono in her position as president of the Smart Choices board. Fennelly stressed that the university is not affiliated with the program.
Kennedy defended Smart Choices in response to the barrage of criticism. "The program is about moving people in a direction of overall better purchases and then hopefully overall better diets," she said.
Kennedy said organizers of Smart Choices want to offer an improvement upon current methods of rating healthiness.
Prior to the program's inception, food companies used a variety of different labeling methods with no uniform classification system, according to Kennedy. Smart Choices based its criteria for grading food products on current scientific consensus, using, among others, the U.S. government's dietary guidelines, the Food and Drug Administration's definition of healthy food and the World Health Organization's standard for added sugar, according to Kennedy.
A number of other organizations have also voiced criticism; www.change.org, a company that seeks to promote social change by disseminating information, sent Smart Choices board members, including Kennedy, a letter denouncing the program and urging their resignation from the board.
Kennedy said that the cereals the program has identified as "smart choices" have sugar contents within the World Health Organization's standards. She also emphasized the necessity of having children eat breakfast in general, noting that many would not eat the first meal of the day if cereals did not include a considerable amount of sugar.
"If you're trying to move children in the direction of better dietary patterns, one of the first things you do is make sure they have breakfast," she said.
Sai Krupa Das, a scientist with the Friedman School, said the program was valuable because it recognizes that processed foods are inevitable staples of the American diet and works to provide guidance for healthier choices within this framework.
"It is quite a useful program," she said. "We live in a world where packaged foods are a part of our daily life and consumption, and it's something we cannot escape."
Smart Choices is currently evaluating food products from 10 companies, according to Kennedy. Participating companies must pay an annual fee ranging from $2,500 to $100,000 to the Keystone Center. The money is used for the "verifying" process, in which food products are reviewed and studied to assess their nutritional quality, according to Kennedy.
Approximately 500 food products currently qualify for the program's designation, according to the Smart Choices Web site.
In addition to Tufts, the American Diabetes Association has also requested that its name be removed from the Smart Choices Web site and has denied any association with the program, according to Change.com.
