Dive Brief:
- The American Beverage Association says it is suspending payments to nutritionists and dietitians who took to social media to promote content and messaging that speaks against the viability and effectiveness of soda taxes, the Associated Press reported.
- Coca-Cola has listed many of these health experts on its website as paid collaborators, according to a post on Medium by public health advocacy group Ninjas for Health.
- The ABA said in a statement to Mic that the nutritionists and dieticians "receive support for their time, not their opinion" and that the organization follows "stringent standards for transparency."
Dive Insight:
After the Global Energy Balance Network debacle, Coca-Cola disclosed much of its nutrition-related funding efforts from the past several years, followed by more soon after. While Coca-Cola meant for that disclosure to serve as a display of transparency, it also exposed company ties to nutritionists and dieticians — and their public opinions.
The issue here is the same as industry-funded nutrition research, which experts and consumers often presume to be biased or skewed. Industry funding can play a crucial role in furthering nutrition and diet-related research and spreading those messages to a wider consumer audience. But those findings and messages may be questionable, especially if they also serve business purposes for the company or industry group itself.
Some of these dietitians included ambiguous disclosures with their posts, such as #partner, #client or #advisor, without specifically mentioning Coca-Cola, the ABA or any other company or organization related to the soda industry. More public disclosure by these health experts could have benefited the industry's transparency efforts, but the industry may have also specifically instructed these dietitians to avoid disclosing their affiliation.