Dietitians for Professional Integrity

Dietitians For Professional Integrity advocates for responsible and ethical sponsorship within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

We believe:

Sponsorship affects public perception of dietitians;
The public deserves nutrition information that is not tainted by food industry interests;
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics should prioritize public health instead of enabling and empowering multinational food companies.

Join our efforts in calling for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to sever its problematic food industry ties and elevate public perception of our credential.

"Corporations 'use' partnerships with, or sponsorship of, public health groups to improve their negative corporate images, which is an important part of these companies' marketing plans. "By allowing their good names to be used by these corporations for public relations purposes, the public health organizations are essentially serving as pawns in the marketing ploys of these companies."
Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, Professor, Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health
"The pervasive sponsorship by food product makers puts the Academy in flagrant conflict of interest. Dietitians ought to be advising clients and the public about what to eat to stay healthy and prevent chronic disease. This necessarily means promoting consumption of some foods and discouraging consumption of others." Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University
"Public health must contend with Big Food, Big Soda, and Big Alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and protect themselves by using front groups, lobbies, promises of self-regulation, lawsuits, and industry-funded research that confuses the evidence and keeps the public in doubt. A powerful corporation can sell the public just about anything."
Dr. Margaret Chan, World Health Organization Director-General
"When you go to your professional annual meeting and you see sponsorships by the likes of Coca-Cola, what does that tell you as a researcher? That it’s perfectly acceptable to say yes when, the next day, the Coca-Cola scientific officer says “let’s team up on some research.”
Michele Simon, MPH, JD, author of Appetite for Profit
"Most countries in Latin America and Asia are seeing the aggressive pushback of Big Food and Big Soda against any effort to regulate unhealthy foods and to promote healthier food consumption. Each time action is taken, the amount of resources Big Food and Big Beverage have placed on fighting this topic are overwhelming."
Barry M. Popkin, PhD, W. R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
"The dietitians of America are split over the role that food industry money plays in the promulgation of the obesity and diabetes epidemics. That DFPI even exists is a manifestation of that tension."
Robert H. Lustig, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco, and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF.

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