Last week I told you about a new, multimillion dollar effort from the Partnership for a Healthier America (the private sector arm of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative) to promote consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Funded by a coalition of companies and nonprofits, the “FNV” campaign will include celebrities like Jessica Alba, Kristen Bell, Nick Jonas and New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. (Earlier this week I shared more information about the campaign.)
In that first post I told you why I was thrilled with the idea, but as soon as I shared it on Twitter, a debate erupted among some of my food policy colleagues. One of the people opposed to the FNV campaign was Casey Hinds of US Healthy Kids, who yesterday wrote a piece in Beyond Chron to share her concerns. I was then given the chance to defend the campaign against her criticism and my piece appears there today.
I hope you take the time to read both posts. While it might seem like I’m a little fixated on this campaign, having now written a few thousand words about it, I think it has larger implications for a variety of important issues: whether it’s ever OK to market to children, whether marketing fruits and vegetables is pure advertising or also a form of needed public health education, whether companies participating in such efforts are getting some undeserved “health-washing” and more.
After you’ve read our posts, please feel free to leave your thoughts here, on Facebook or on Beyond Chron.
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