Cross Currents; Forum on Nutrition and Public Policy, Recorded in Burlington (Vermont)

This is Vermont Public Radio forums crosscurrents a series of lectures and public discussions exploring issues of concern in for months. On this edition of cross currents we take you to Burlington is College St. Congregational Church where the University of Vermont's Church Street center sponsored a series of six forums and titled should our public policies promote health. On the evening of May 15th one thousand seventy nine. The topic was nutrition a matter of personal choice or public policy. We will hear the views of three people. Robert his burger and Joyce leave back both nutritionists at the University of Vermont and Joseph Kroger a professor of religion at St. Michael's College. Our first speaker Robert Byrd is an assistant professor of human nutrition and foods at the University of Vermont. He has a background in nutritional biochemistry and has a particular interest in diet composition. He starts his talk with a biochemical definition of nutrition. I have decided and I hope that you'll bear with me in this too.

To use a set of basic concepts of nutrition. That was a set forth subsequent to the 967 national nutrition education conference and the basic concepts of nutrition. Scuse me were to be used as guidelines for nutrition education and this is the reason that they were formulated by the organizers of this national nutrition education conference that was held in the late 60s. I'm I'm going to not only used the basic concepts that were formulated but I'm going to expand on them for clarification sake. And I'm also going to introduce a modicum of my own personal biases where I feel that it's necessary to do this. The first of the concepts of very basic concepts of nutrition that were put forth addressed very simply and principally

the process of nutrition and the concept reads as follows nutrition is the food we eat and how the body uses it. We eat food to live to grow to keep healthy and well and to derive energy for work and play. A very strict physiological or biochemical definition of nutrition limits itself to the process by which the organism utilizes food. The nutritional stress the nutritional status of the organism is thought to result then from the balance between the supply of nutrients on the one hand and the total expenditure of energy of the organism on the other. The processes by which the organism utilizes food may then define the process of nutrition. And by that I mean the following. The way we use food

is first through the digestion of that food by the alimentary canal the absorption of the nutrients that are contained in that food into the body through the intestinal wall. The transport of these nutrients probably by the blood circulatory system throughout the body. The storage of the nutrients within the individual cells of the individual organs of the body. The metabolism and by metabolism I mean the actual use of the nutrients by the cells of these organs of the body. And finally the elimination of the end products of that metabolism. This is in fact the process of nutrition digestion absorption transport storage metabolism and elimination. The quality of the diet that we consume was addressed

in the second basic concept that the nutrition education conference delineated. The second concept deals with the composition of the diet and is stated as follows. Food is made up of different nutrients needed for growth and health. All nutrients needed by the body are available through food many kinds in combinations of food can lead to a well-balanced diet. At this point in time I asked myself a question and the question was something along these lines. Why must we eat a well-balanced diet. Why must we eat food selected from a wide variety of sources. Why has as a nutritionist and as a biochemist do I teach. The fact that foods of every origin plant origin in animal origin are absolutely essential. The answer in my mind

to this question is that we as individuals are not able to synthesize all the nutrients that our body needs to function in good physiological health to stay nutritionally well. And no one single food contains all the nutrients in amounts sufficient to promote optimum growth and to maintain life. Therefore the composition of the diet or the quality of the diet that we consume is dictated by our own metabolism the metabolism that is unique to us as human beings is also dictated by the fact that the food we consume comes from both plant and animal sources animals other than human beings whose metabolism is as unique to those sources as our own metabolism is to us and therefore the nutrients

contained within those foods are not of sufficient quantity to promote optimum growth and physical well-being in the human metabolism so the quality of our diet is extremely important. The third basic concept continues to the address the idea of quality but begins to introduce the concept of quantity of diet and the frequency of consumption. The third basic concept that was set forth is stated as follows. All persons throughout life have a need for the same nutrients but in varying amounts. All persons throughout life have the need for the same nutrients that means the quality of our diet does not change. What does change is the quantity of the diet that we consume. The amount of nutrients that are needed

by the body at any given time are influenced by five basic parameters. The first one is age. We all realize and accept the fact that a young growing individual infant child has an added need for individual nutrients as well as for calories to Genesee a child lying on its back in a crib. The only part that's touching the crib is the small of the back the legs are kicking constantly The arms are moving the head is usually up off the pillow. Try it sometimes. Try lying down and just the small of your back and keeping your arms your legs and your head suspended. It's a very difficult thing to do it takes an awful lot of energy to accomplish this and also at the same time we are adding on. We are accruing nutrients we are adding onto our body we are growing. Growth is defined simply as a change in volume or a change in size due to a change in volume bone growth this is

occurring muscle growth is occurring all the organs of the body are increasing proportionately. And therefore added nutrients are needed at this time. But we get to be about 20 years old. And for women it's a little bit early and women begin to wear out a little bit sooner than men do when we get to be however about 20 years old. Reverse process takes place. Our basal metabolism the number of calories that we need to keep ourselves going on a daily basis excluding physical activity or the amount of energy that it takes to metabolize the nutrients. If we exclude these two things that basal metabolism begins to slow down by about 2.5 percent predict Kate after 20 years of age with this means is that in the elderly they need the same quality of diet the same degree of quality of diet but in lesser quantity and it becomes extremely important for the elderly to refrain from consuming empty calorie foods those foods that

contain a low nutrient density. And it's very very important for the elderly to consume those foods that contain a very high nutrient density since their calories have to be limited because of the physiological process of aging. They must ensure the fact that the nutrient density of the food is high the quality of the diet remains the same. What changes is the quantity of consumption. Sex has a lot to do with influencing the amounts of nutrients that are needed. Women have about a 10 percent greater amount of adipose tissue body fat genetically than men do. The female of the species always has a greater amount it seems of fat on the body than the male species. The male of the species the male has a greater proportion of muscular tissue. And if you know anything about the metabolism of muscular tissue versus fat tissue muscle tissue metabolism is

very much greater. And so it therefore demands a greater amount of nutrients and calories to sustain that greater metabolism. So men need a greater number of calories than women so the sex of the individual then plays a role in the amounts of nutrients the size of the individual plays a role. It was Col Voight and one of his students Max router in the early and mid eighteen hundreds I believe. These people were the first ones to demonstrate that heat production of the animal is directly proportional to the surface area of the body. What this means simply is that if you have a larger surface area you are giving off more heat and you need more calories to sustain that heat that that that metabolism. A tall skinny person has a greater surface area and expends more heat than a shorter more squaddie person. Another parameter that influences the needs of nutrients or the quantity of

nutrients that we consume is the activity level of the individual. And I'm sure you can all realize this. If you were a very active athletic exercising type of an individual someone who enjoys physical activity sustained physical activity in particular you need more calories to keep you going to meet that caloric expenditure of energy. However to many people. They think that energy expenditure or exercise is a very nice way to try and lose weight. Unfortunately it is a very inefficient way to try to lose weight Consider for example the following. Bicycling at a moderate rate of speed burns up two point five killer calories for every two point two pounds of body weight per hour. When running jogging at a moderate moderate rate of speed burns up 7 kilocalories per kilogram of body weight which is two point two pounds per hour.

What this means is that if a hundred and ten pound woman a 110 pound woman who is about 50 kilograms expend seven kilocalories per kilogram per hour it will take her 10 hours of running at a moderate speed to burn up one pound of fat. And I think if you if you look at it in those terms you will see where exercise is not in and of itself a very efficient way to lose weight. Coupled with with an appropriate dietary regimen hopefully one that reduces calories while maintaining a mixture of nutrients and while maintaining all foods that the person is used to eating a calorically restricted diet coupled with energy expenditure and in the form of exercise go hand in hand and then becomes more feasible to talk about energy expenditure and exercise in these terms rather then in a means to an end all to itself.

Another influence a parameter in the last parameter that influences the quantity of nutrients that are needed is the state of health of the individual. And as you can all tell by my sinuses right now I am in that that particular state of health where I need additional nutrients in a few. If you believe the Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling particularly So on the water soluble vitamins that we may be able to talk about a little bit later on when you have a cold when you have the flu. When you have a surgical procedure or an operation. State of health of the individual is affected and there is an additional need for nutrients during this time. This is especially true for those individuals that have a long sustained or chronic illness. But it's not simply an illness a disease that demands an increase in the nutrients but we can couple of couple of

these things together we can couple sex age and the state of health of the individual. When a woman becomes pregnant and she assumes the physiological stress of pregnancy she has an increased need for nutrients during that time. If the woman is a young woman. A teenager who is still growing and she has a physiological stress of growth coupled with the physiological stress of pregnancy she is in double jeopardy. With respect to diet and must ensure an adequate nutrient supply must ensure the consumption of a high quality diet in sufficient quantity to sustain not only the pregnancy but also her own growing and abolition. The last basic concept that was set out in this in this national nutrition education conference was the way food is handled and by handling I mean everything that happens to food while it is being grown

processed stored transported and prepared for eating the way food is handled influences the amount of nutrients in that food. In addition it influences its safety. It influences that food appearance and it also influences that foods taste. I can sum up this part of what I have to say best by applying the agent host environment relationship to. This theory of nutrition or in this attempt to define nutrition or to define physiological or biochemical nutrition the host in this case is the human body the agent by which we are going to nourish the host. Are the nutrients that are contained in the food that we eat the environment is the food the host interacts with the agent the host needs

nutrients in a very strict sense then nutrition is the way the host that is the human body utilizes the agent that is the nutrients within the food. This utilization process is influenced by the quality the quantity and the frequency of consumption as dictated by our age our sex our size our level of activity and our state of health. Superimposed on this very simple definition of nutrition. Is the relationship that the agent has with the environment. That is the relationship that the nutrients within the food has with the food itself. And this includes all those parameters which modify the nutrient content of the food supply that were used to consume it. Now this grand design that I laid out very briefly for this

definition that I gave you very briefly would be perfect if we were experimental animals like research rats in a cage and had some researcher coming to us handing us this quantity of a high quality diet at a regular frequency. What is unique about the study of nutrition which makes it almost impossible for me to to define in any simple terms is that although its roots and its beginnings are based in the physiological and biochemical sciences the pattern of food use throughout different cultures has. Has been dictated excuse me for the most part by one. What food is available in the immediate locale. And this is in this is in no law in no small measure determined by the politics and the policies of that region and that country as well as the social economic and cultural status

of the individuals that are in it that we're discussing this group the society that we're talking about. You cannot simply define nutrition in terms of physical or biochemical terms. I think this is where many medical schools make the mistakes. This is where many of the people trained in the basic sciences make a mistake. You have to realize that when dealing with nutrition as a science or the science of nutrition however you want to put it impinging on this very basic physiological or biochemical science or social economic economical cultural and political influences stablish nutrition as a science. That was Robert Byrd an assistant professor of human nutrition and foods at the University of Vermont. He spoke in Burlington at a forum entitled nutrition a matter of personal choice or public policy. The next speaker Joyce Levi

also teaches at the University of Vermont where she is an associate professor in the Department of Human Nutrition and foods. She starts off by wondering if there is any agreement over what is nutritious. Historically we've had basic seven and basic four food groups and people have been able to choose from no less. From world up until World War 2 the refined food constituted no more than 10 percent of the national diet and today that figure is at least 70 and probably 75 percent out in the 1960s we began to see some change as people began to realize that they wanted a choice in the quality of food which they were demanding. They became interested in food from from a political and from a humanitarian and from animal humanitarian aspect we saw vegetarian. It is I'm growing and

people began to be interested in Eastern philosophy as far as food was concerned then there were a lot of very interesting things happening at this time. All these people were pretty much call food faddist by the nutritional establishment unfortunately. In 1977 McGovern Select Committee on nutrition finally had beaten out the dietary goals and these are a set of guidelines which have really provoked a lot of interest and sparked a lot of interest in nutrition and have been much more fascinating to people to talk about than than the four food groups and partly because there was a lot of controversy which goes around nutrition today. It really the dietary goals polarized issues around food and its relationship with a six increasing diseases serious diseases that we have and this became our first food policy on a

national level that I'm aware of I'm sure that there been other parts of policies like when they wanted to add back three vitamins to Brad all the enrichment of flour and things of that coin but I'm looking at sort of a bigger issues now when they look at the dietary goals nobody agrees here over what is good nutrition. You know there may be two reasons and probably a lot more. First of all there are no clear cut answers about scientific things like whether saturated fats are going to cause more coronary heart disease and eating eggs and so on. And for anything that you want to believe you can go into the index Medicus and into the journals and you can find a nice set of studies that will support whatever you want to say. And the foremost nutritionists are likewise either sitting on the fence over these things or have pulled together their own particular things and they do not agree. That is that we really don't know the answers as far as nutrition is concerned. And

secondly there are a great many things that are why this isn't a state of flux and why people disagreed with the dietary goals and any any other kind of a no nutritional policy that you might come up with is because a lot of this is based on vested interests and profit in the food industry and the dietary goals the first thing that happened of course that was suggested that they eat less meat and McGovern had to knuckle under on that one because his own farmers in South Dakota were very much upset and meat the meat Institute was absolutely horrified by the whole thing. So they got changed around in Rivas ice and it was suggested that they lean me but not to eat less meat. In particular it was not nearly as strong as it was in the beginning in the dietary goals if you have access to that little booklet you will find that there's very little said about additives. They left that one alone it was pretty hard to handle. We find nutritionists on the national level not agreeing.

We find people on the national chairman of the Food Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Science not agreeing an example of this is Gilbert Levi who is also I can't remember which college again I looked that up it's somewhere in the Middle West where Michigan is Michigan. And he knows where uphill and down that we have the best diet any persons could ever have here in the United States because we no longer have deficiency diseases and people are not dying more of cancer because they're living longer and it would skew the statistics. You can prove that this is not true. If you want to look at it that way. He claims that there's very meager evidence as far as food and cancer is concerned. And here's to the stronghold of all of food industry people that if we cut out nitrates and nitrites then we're all going

to die of botulism because this is their only to make the food safe do we all. We have many tie ins with nutritionists and food industry. John Meyer at a recent talk here was a little bit annoyed when somebody brought up the nice ladies boycott and he said he didn't think that that would be of any use at all and that it would especially since we didn't. And here to breastfeeding ourselves we had no business saying that they shouldn't third world countries and also that the infant formulas were very the very best of foods. He was on the board of Myles laboratories. They all have you know none of us are perfect and we all have our little foibles. And of course Fred stair is been in the employ of the sugar industry and that one's been beaten around a long time. And Dr. headstand has announced in a rather recent publication that he sees no harm in food additives. So we're all human and everybody is

in one way or another got their own version. This extends to books and it's pretty interesting to see how these people can influence you know what foods people think are nutritious. And this is a brand new nutrition book that's being sent to all of us at the university called contemporary nutrition controversies. And it's edited by Theodore Roosevelt and his industry connections have been well documented with general males Searles biochemistry Pillsbury Wesson and Quaker Oats. And this little publication anywhere you read here will give you the exact opposite of what's been said in the dietary goals where they tell you to eat less sugar and they say there's nothing wrong with sugar if we cut out sugar we're going to be deficient and calories and there's no particular reason another article says why we should get ourselves all excited over fiber because probably fiber is going to bind up all our minerals. And

this is going to be bad for us and we don't really know why it's good for us because the research isn't in and this kind of thing is is going on. So. We have that kind of a thing. We have a lot of controversy over what's nutritious if you take school foods and when can testify to that when you try to figure out a definition of what are nutritious foods. And the Burlington school system they said no foods containing more than than 20 percent sugar was not fat and 10 percent sugar. And that doesn't say whether it's the fat in the food or on the outside and you can get all kinds of real problems about what is and isn't a nutritious food. And some people say you can't have any sugar other people say you can't use honey or or maple all and then some other people say for example this particular rule would make butter a non nutritious food. So it's very difficult to get just in

something that you think would be fairly clear cut like this. It's very difficult to get an answer as to what's a nutritious food or not. The. All. For example in breakfast cereals containing 100 plus the amount of the RDA of different minerals and vitamins. This is constantly being put to us put forth to us in advertising and they can put out materials that will make you just believe that eating Kellogg's is going to make a child eat breakfast and it's better isn't it to eat breakfast than to go without breakfast and that they're just the same number of calories in a certain amount of Wheaties as there is with frosted with a little difficulty with that. But these things are very difficult to establish what is and what isn't there's so much going on. The. We don't know all

about synthetics if they're going to be nutritious or not. This is the first time that we have diverged from our ancestral dye since World War 2 and we're getting more and more synthetic foods. We don't know how nutritious they are. Oh we some of us have our suspicions because of the fact that the whole field of trace minerals is opened up and we don't know all that much about trace minerals yet. And these are not added back to these foods. So when it comes down to defining what is nutritious and what is on it's it's a very difficult thing to do. And there is no agreement amongst the professionals. And. This is it's an open season on defining what is and what isn't nutritious. Now how and to what extent should public policy promote good nutrition. Oh.

We need certainly some leadership and clarification nobody wants to be told what to do what to eat that is for sure but we need some kind of leadership because everyone is saying something different and it gets harmful after a time because people will come to hear a speaker like Fred stair for example or some of these other notable nutritionists and they're saying something different than maybe somebody else is saying. And people become really almost to the point where they say you know they might give up and say everything's going to be harmful and so why do we bother. So it's important that we do have some kind of a leadership or some kind of clarification somewhere some time. Secondly we need some fostering of an economic system that is going to produce nutritious foods. And I guess here is where I'd just like to talk a bit about Norway because it's pretty evident that in the United

States that there's not very much relationship between economic problem policies and what's happening to our nutrition. In fact our regulatory agencies the National Academy of Science and many of the other regulatory agencies are. Regulating the food supply and because they're so infiltrated with vested interests that we may not getting the most desirable may not be getting the most desirable regulation in Norway. They give consumer price subsidies and producer cost subsidies to make desirable foods cheaper than undesirable. No their national policy is very similar to ours. It stresses the use of more complex carbohydrates such as potatoes and whole grains less of the simple sugars and more fruits and vegetables especially fresh if available so they lower the price on food grains and

potatoes they keep some law and an example of what is not happening like that here is the cost of whole grain bread it's it's more expensive than than white bread. And this should not be happening. Over there the production and consumption of skim milk is subsidized while whole milk is not. They have regulatory actions to prevent production and distribution of undesirable food. And obviously we're not doing anything like that. If you witness the fight over the kids TV the fight to get the non-nutritious junk food out of vending machines out of the school system. All for the school lunches are going to be served. The USDA has been dragging their feet on that for a long time because there's so much lobbying by Hershey candy bar and because the average citizen doesn't get to write letters and doesn't isn't able to go to Washington and spend the money and the time to lobby the

Norway makes a major effort to prevent the dissemination of your own ears and misleading information about Forwood. Relevant programs are instituted at the primary level as far as teaching children. All right. So the nutrition education is started very young. We in Vermont were not able to even get the 75000 a year that we could use for nutrition education in the schools. The policy throughout is that food should be seen as sources of nutrition rather than as commodities and something to make money out of it just from her recent talk of the university had slides from food technology magazines and the way that they talk about food. You couldn't tell whether it was food or steel with the rollers and all of the technology that was involved. And it has

become a commodity to make a profit. But Norway's policy puts only secondary emphasis on individual behavior. It proposes to alter dietary habits by changing the production and distribution of food in order to discourage the availability of unhealthy foods. And if we had only good healthy foods available then we wouldn't have to worry about people making poor choices. Norway's entirely different over many years they have had set up a co-operative structure so between farm and government they're not overladen with vending machines they have public television so advertising is not the problem that it is here. People see government intervention as a positive factor in their lives which we do not. But they are combat ing the same diseases we are and it would seem that we really need to get some kind of a policy coupled with a lot of individual. I think you have to have at this point in this country individual education as well.

That was Joyce leave back an associate professor of human nutrition and foods at the University of Vermont. You're listening to nutrition a matter of personal choice or public policy. This program was recorded at a forum sponsored by the University of Vermont Church Street Center. The last speaker Dr. Joseph Kroger is the chairman of the Department of Religious Studies and a Professor of Medical Ethics at St. Michael's College in wood new ski. He is also the state coordinator of bread for the world a national citizen's lobby which seeks legislation to reduce hunger and malnutrition. Dr. Kroger gives us his thoughts on freedom justice and social responsibility and how they relate to the discussion of nutrition. I think basically there are two different approaches to answering the question. Is nutrition a matter of personal choice or public policy. And I think these two approaches are rooted in two different views

about freedom and responsibility on the one hand and justice on the other. Two different views of both that are prevalent in our society today. The other night when we were talking about health care in the first a session of these discussions trying to get some clarity on just what is health and what's the meaning of health. We were let into the discussion period talking about ideologies and belief systems and basic assumptions that seem to lie behind what people were saying. And it became clear at least to me as and I progressed that there were different belief systems and basic assumptions about health. It was not just a question of concepts but of fundamental attitudes and beliefs. And I think even the most compelling or persuasive reason that someone might give to support an argument for or against a particular public policy in the area of nutrition would only be it would only sound reasonable and would only be persuasive if it accords with

one's belief system. This is why I'd like to address these these basic. Assumptions about freedom and responsibility. Basically what I'd like to do in the few minutes I have this evening is two things first to present what I think are two different views. Freedom and Justice and to see what perspective they lend to the discussion of nutrition and secondly I'd like to take two examples two instances of attempts to implement a public policy in the area of nutrition and just see how these two perspectives influence the way that one would look at these public policies. The first part in other words is going to be somewhat philosophical and theoretical. But I think it has practical implications which I'll try to bring out in two examples. Before talking about freedom. I think there's a need for a qualification or maybe a disclaimer or two.

First of all I'm not concerned with freedom in the existential or psychological sense language of freedom seems to run in two different directions either psychological or political. Since we're talking about public policy implications and what should be done in the social context for promoting nutrition the notions of freedom and justice which have a bearing on the discussion are the political concepts not the psychological concepts. When freedom and responsibility are discussed as psychological. Attitudes there internalized and absolute. Freedom becomes a matter of internal consciousness or awareness and has to do has little to do with external conditions and circumstances it has more to do with the attitude one takes so that some people would say well we are absolutely free to determine our own health. We're absolutely free to determine our own nutrition and in the psychological sense that's true but in a political sense it's not true. One can

be free in a psychological sense presumably even if they're oppressed politically and socially and consequently health and nutritional policies really are irrelevant to that kind of discussion I think. The second qualification is that there's a lot of different ideas about freedom and justice and responsibility and rights and I'm going to try to simplify some of that talk by clarifying two basic outlooks. And I'm not going to be able to cover all the different notions or the individual aspects of the concepts but just to try to distinguish two different approaches to these questions. So let me start with that. The first view. That I would call an individualistic ethic. Looks at freedom and justice in a very specific way. It assumes First of all that we live in a very loose so Szell system and that there is a lot of emphasis should be a lot of emphasis on individual

initiative and individual responsibility within this framework of individual mystic ethics. Freedom means freedom from control. It means freedom from government interference. It means freedom from social interference. It means the freedom to be left alone. The freedom to be on one's own freedom not to have someone tell you what to do about your health for example about your nutrition. Justice means the individual's right to have what they have merited and what they have earned. Within this particular framework which I think is the dominant view in our society self-reliance and autonomy are very important values. They're the primary values the less social control the better. Freedom is independence. And it's based on independence and is synonymous I think with independence as I said it. This is a simplification of a view. I don't want to. Caricature it but I think that's the dominant thrust of the

Garvan custody physician who is writing about health rights and government interference takes this view very specifically and talks about social policies obstructing human enterprise and personal endeavor and stifling individual initiative. And he argues for no government intervention in health at all although he speaks about health care rights generally what he has to say applies I think to a great extent to public policy decisions regarding promotion of nutrition or restricting industries in the area of nutrition rights according to the custody are achieved unmerited. And no one he says has a right to health care or nutrition unless they earn it and pay for it. In this view social control destroys the freedom of those individuals who supply these services health services and food services. Well that's one position. Freedom from control justice is earned or merit. The other

view which is I think radically opposed to the first. You could call a socialistic ethic. It assumes that we live in a very tight and complex social system and in this view freedom means freedom to participate in a complex high technology society. Freedom is based on interdependence not independence but interdependent and is identical to interdependence and the ability to interrelate in a society and to share and participate in that society. Justice in this view means ensuring that individuals are equipped to participate on the basis of having these basic needs or tools what Ivan Ilyitch I think calls tools of conviviality tools of participation. One must be equipped with those tools if they are going to participate at all in this kind of society in what they conceive to be a modern society.

So society has the obligation in justice to grant these these rights and a less basic participatory needs or tools of conviviality are fulfilled. Many individuals will remain socially alienated and a strange and will never be able to equip themselves on their own. A philosopher a sociologist Gibson winter takes a view takes this view very explicitly and he talks about the fact that a material web of interdependence throughout our society creates conditions for participation. And this web consists of communication networks transportation networks economic networks employment networks education networks food networks and so on functions and services which make us dependent on the organization political organization which maintains the network and binds us to one another and bind society together as a whole and gives us the conditions of our very survival. This

web according to witter this web of interdependence is inescapable and participatory consciousness is but a reflection of the reality of this technological web of interdependence. From this point of view there's a certain irony in the fact that despite the reality of societal interdependence we continue to talk and live with a certain mythology that's carried over from earlier times. The folklore of individual ism the individualists of ethic I refer to above. We have created a society in which every citizen depends upon a web of services which he could never afford to provide and yet we speak and think is that each man or woman has to make it on their own. In the past in a simple society you earn membership by initiative and self-determination in a technological society the conditions of membership are changing or rather radical way. Prerequisites for freedom

and the right to pursue happiness are the cultural and social resources which are either made available or not. It has little to do with inner drive and initiative of the individual. So to be free in a high technology society such as ours means first to share in the basic resources and services requisite for membership and to be free. No longer is a matter of removing restraints on individual initiative. Rather it means being empowered by society to participate. What all this means in terms of responsibility and rights is not that individuals are no longer responsible for themselves but that responsibility must be exercised socially not individually. Since those who are free those who do have some control. Those who have been equipped have it in virtue of their being granted empowered by society and to retreat to a kind of an individualistic self reliant ethic. At this point

on the part of those who are educated who have a certain amount of social resources is to betray and to do an injustice to those who still lack these. Now how does all this apply to the question of nutrition. Personal choice or public policy I like to look at two examples because I think there's two ways of phrasing the question and the two ways of phrasing the question are these to what extent should public policy promote good nutrition. And then the flipside of that question. To what extent should public policy regulate or restrict the food industry and prevent malnutrition kind of negative in a positive formulation of the question. First of all I'd like to take an example that I think applies to the first formulation and that is the proposal to have a national mandated school breakfast school lunch program. Should we

have. It's an ethical question. Ought we to have a national school lunch act a public policy that would mandate force schools to provide free or reduced price breakfast and lunch to children from families at a given poverty level of income which would be established of course in such an act. Last year the Senate Subcommittee on nutrition held hearings in Vermont and in Oklahoma to discuss this and several other federal initiatives in the area of nutrition. Ax Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont and Senator Henry Mehlman provided over these hearings. I sat in on most of the testimony. LEAHY When he introduced the the meeting referred to new nutritional policies and one of the three that was being discussed was a mandated school breakfast program as the key to a national preventive health policy education he said should be a primary focus for our

federal child nutrition programs and the school meals program should provide an example for healthy eating habits. In listening to the testimony one thing that came through was that everyone is in favor of good nutrition. It's kind of like being in favor of motherhood and apple pie. Suppose Or maybe those aren't good analogies today since motherhood seems to be attacked in some circles and I don't particularly like apple pie myself and they are most people are in favor of good nutrition. But there is a definite conflict of views a definite conflict between the positions that were taken and just how responsibility should be exercised in implementing such policies. And just what rights children have to nutrition. And I think the views divided basically along the ideological lines that I mentioned earlier. On the one hand you had those who in my view seem to conceive of

freedom and justice very individually and they tended to regard nutrition primarily as a matter of personal choice. They opposed mandated school breakfast and lunch programs. Since these seem to raise the specter of social interference and restricting the freedom of the families. If freedom means freedom from government interference in government regulations then the last policies in this area the better because that means less control and that means more freedom and freedom by definition means the absence of control. Freedom from control. Nutrition is not a right apparently to be insured by society but a right to be earned. They seem to be saying or at least that was the assumption behind a number of things they were saying. Consequently if society provides for basic nutritional needs there is in their words and I'm quoting one of the participants one who testified a stigma attached to being a recipient of some

kind of charity. In contrast to accepting what's rightfully one one's own injustice. That's the difference between charity and justice. Just when you receive something in justice justice establishes rights. If you have a right to that then there's no stigma attached. By the by the nature of it there's only a stigma if you assume it's not a right it's charity and there's a stigma to accepting charity in our society. One state official who testified against mandated school meals program said that in her experience several many local officials are against such mandated programs which would be based on need because of the stigma that was attached to it. I just like to quote one phrase from the testimony. There's a feeling in Vermont she said a pride factor all through the state of Vermont families would rather send their children to school with 30 cents 40 cents than to fill out a free and reduced price application in many

instances. The rest of the testimony that this individual gave in my opinion confirmed a view that she herself regarded this as a matter of pride and that the right to nutritional meals unlike the right to education itself incidentally is a right that has to be earned and that society through public officials should not interfere with this right. Another official school official who was testifying at this hearing commented quote provisions for breakfast raises in the school community the notion of impinging on family lifestyle and family obligations. Well that's one view. Another. Another view. I think the view that many others in fact most others took on this particular issue it seems to me. It was very different and it was a view of the right not only to nutritional education but to nutrition itself and supported mandated school meals programs whereby society would

ensure a basic nutritional diet for those who could not individually afford to purchase it. It was clear to me that they were operating with very different assumptions about freedom and justice. Here freedom meant freedom to participate. If you couldn't afford to participate you weren't free. And being left alone was not enabling you to be free. It was not making you free. You were not empowered. Justice was based on ensuring these basic needs of participation it like the right to education the right to nutrition. From this point of view is basic in our society. Quite simply children who come to school under nourished and remain that way throughout the day are unable even to take full advantage of their education. Ironically from this viewpoint our society is very protective with healthy minds. We go to great lengths as far sent even as far as censoring books in school libraries go to great lengths to ensure that nothing

unhealthy enters our children's minds. We're very protective in that regard. But we're not willing to extend that same kind of protection and right to good nutrition and ensure that healthy food enters our children's minds. Well that's the issue and I think it's approached differently depending on what you think freedom is and justice. The second issue is to what extent should public policy restrict the food industry in order to prevent MT attrition example like to take here. Very briefly is this question Should we have. It's a question the choice or an issue that Joyce referred to very briefly should we have public policies which regulate more strictly TV advertising that pertains to nutrition and is aimed at children. Or to put it another way does the First Amendment protect Franken Berry and count jocular. Kids 2 to 12. Attract half a million

half a billion dollars of TV advertising annually. Most commercials are directed to food and toys. The Federal Trade Commission last year proposed a number of rules to try to regulate and control such advertising basically there were three to prohibit all TV ads directed at children under eight. And the argument here was that they're simply too young to understand. Second to ban ads for highly sugared products to children under 12 studies have indicated that these products pose a serious dental health risk. And third to require advertisers to fund health and nutrition messages which would be broadcast during children's viewing time. Here again just as in the case of mandate school breakfast programs the Commission asked for public response. There were hearings held. And as you might expect the arguments were on both sides on the one side. Individuals are arguing for the health and well-being of children. On the other side they were arguing for free enterprise and First Amendment rights for individuals to advertise and

to sell promote food products. The philosophy or ethic of social freedom and social rights social justice that I referred to earlier. Recognizes the powerful impact of sophisticated ad technology the psychologically manipulative powers of persuasion that are the resources that are at the disposal of industry and the fact that social habits eating habits nutrition habits are formed in the very early years and they're difficult to change. And they also have lasting effects. On the other hand the philosophy or ethic of individual freedom and individual justice challenge this view and argue that parents have the ultimate control at the time of purchase. And as far as they were concerned this justified spending five hundred million dollars of counter persuasion trying to entice children to eat what is bad for them. Well just where does responsibility

lie with the individual or at the level of public policy. There is a consumer organization Action for Children's Television a C.T. that argues that 98 percent food advertising is for products that children do not have to eat non nutritious things and that junk cereals are designed specifically because they can be pushed on kids through TV. Jean Meyer nutritionist and president of Tufts University gives this rule of law. She says quote The nutritional value of a food varies inversely with the amount of money spent advertising. You can check that off if you want but that's just a loose rule of thumb. Research has confirmed that most heavily advertised foods are the ones that are asked for the most often. And one study concludes that parents a seed to children's request 87 percent of the time. Thus far the advertising industry has refused vehemently to regulate

itself and they've had to be forced to accept every single limitation that's been put on their activities to date and organize a massive campaign against the FDA FTC proposal. So the question I guess is should we allow this kind of blatant exploitation of our children for commercial purposes and can we support this in the name of freedom and justice. That was Joseph Kroger chairman of the Department of Religion at St. Michael's College. In his concluding remarks Dr. Kroger states that in the name of freedom and justice exploitation of our children for commercial purposes should be allowed. But that in the name of social freedom and social justice it should not. According to Dr. Kroger The assumption behind the food protection laws in our society and behind the proposed FTC advertising rules is that it is wrong for private interest to adulterate the public's attitudes and habits in regard to nutrition.

This view says that the only way to exercise personal control over the food industry is through social responsibility. And that is illusory to think that the individual alone can compete with social pressures of such a highly organized and industrialized social force. Dr. Kroger concluded that one's approach to this public policy matter will be a function of one's basic assumptions or belief systems about just what it means to be a free individual in society and how one secures justice. Dr. Kroger spoke at Burlington's College Street Congregational Church where the University of Ron's Church Street centers sponsored a series of six forums and titled should our public policies promote health. For this program the topic was nutrition a matter of personal choice or public policy. We heard from Robert and Joyce leave back both nutritionists at the University of Vermont and Joseph Kroger a professor of religion at St. Michael's College. This edition of Vermont Public Radio forums crosscurrents was recorded by Fred Wasser

and Randall buyer.